234 (Y)MMON BT^TTrSJI ANIMALS 



attack, and 3^011 may see him emerge from cover and 

 rush hither and thither trying* to shake off his 

 enemies. He snorts and stamps, but it is of no 

 avail ; often in despair he rushes blindly back to 



The Reindeer or Caribou {Rancjifer tarandus, Linn.), and 

 the Moose (Alces machlis, Ogilby). 



Both the reindeer and the moose or elk were 

 formerly inhabitants of the British Isles and coeval 

 with prehistoric man. Now these animals are cir- 

 cumpolar, though the pair of antlers found in the 

 peat of the Curragh bog, which are exhibited in the 

 Dublin Museum, is a proof that this individual at 

 least survived into recent times, and Mr. Harting" 

 quotes a passage from the " Orkneyinga Saga '^ as 

 translated by Torfoeus in his history of Orkney, 

 which speaks of the jarls of Orkney being in the 

 habit of crossing over to the moorlands of Caith- 

 ness every summer during the twelfth century to 

 hunt the roe and the reindeer. But as philologists 

 are not agreed as to the correct translation of this 

 passage, and some aver that for reindeer, we should 

 read red deer, we are still in doubt whether reindeer 

 did live in Britain during the historic period. With 

 the increasing warmth, after the second glacial period, 

 the food plants of the reindeer doubtless became 

 scarce, and with them the animal was driven further 

 and further northwards. 



Excellent etchings on reindeer horns and bones 

 and on slate have been found in France. One 

 * ' Aninials Extinct Avitliin TTistovic Times; pp. 72-73. 



