6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 56 



frons. The two skulls of R. granti available for comparison are 

 peculiar in the hypsodont character of the molariform teeth. Two 

 skulls, collected by Lieutenant Ray on the Meade River, are referred 

 to this new species. Unfortunately no skins of caribou from the 

 Arctic coast of Alaska are available, and the external characters of 

 this form can not now be described. 



RANGIFER PHYLARCHUS, sp. nov. 



Type from southeastern Kamchatka. Cat. no. .21343, U. S. 

 National Museum. Adult male, skull. Collected in 1883, by Dr. 

 Leonhard Stejneger. Orig. no. 2709. 



Characters. — Largest of the Palearctic reindeer; exceeds Rangi- 

 fer tarandus fennicus of Finland in every important cranial measure- 

 ment. Skull very much larger than that of R. t. sibiriciis, with 

 higher braincase and smaller teeth. 



Skull and teeth. — Skull large, massive, and elongated. Compared 

 with measurements of skull of R. t. sibirictis, as published by Doctor 

 Lonnberg,'' it is very much larger than that form, with a relatively 

 narrower rostrum. Braincase high and rounded ; frontal bones con- 

 cave in center and rising abruptly, back of frontal depression, to a 

 height of about 35 millimeters above plane of rostrum. Lachrymal 

 vacuities large. Mandible relatively slender. Tooth rows measur- 

 ing less than in sihiriciis, but probably averaging about same actual 

 size, and thus relatively much smaller. The incisor teeth are, un- 

 fortunately, missing. 



Measurements. — For measurements of the type skull see table 

 below. 



Remarks. — As known from the skull alone, the Kamchatkan rein- 

 deer is a very different animal from the species of northeastern 

 Siberia, referred by Doctor Lonnberg to R. t. sibiriciis Murray. The 

 name sibiricus dates, however, from Schreber, " Die Saugthiere," 

 plate 248c, 1784, instead of from Murray's " Geographical Distribu- 

 tion of Mammals," as stated by Doctor Lonnberg. This fact puts 

 the question of the name of the reindeer from the Chukchi country, 

 as represented by the Nordqvist specimen described by Doctor Lonn- 

 berg, in a different light. A careful review of the text for the rein- 

 deer plates of Schreber's work, published in 1804, gives little help 

 in determining a type locality for sibirictis. It is evident that the 

 plate is chiefly based upon a description of the color of the ' Siberian ' 

 reindeer, furnished Schreber in a letter from Pallas — " Die sibiris- 



^Arkiv for Zool., Vol. 6, hft. i, No. 4. pp. 17-18, 1909. 



