THE DEER— REINDEER. 



521 



old males sometimes, but not uniformly, have small 

 canine teeth in the upper jaw; the females never 

 have them. 



The Reindeer may be styled the most useful of 

 Deer. Entire nations owe their existence to it; for 

 they would cease to be did they not possess this 

 strangely chosen domestic animal. To the Lap- 

 lander or Finlander the Reindeer is much more of 

 a necessity than the Ox or Horse is to us, or the 

 Camel and Goat to the Arab; for it must perform 

 the aggregated services of nearly all other domestic 

 animals. The tame Reindeer yields flesh and skin, 

 bones and tendons, to furnish its master with food 

 and raiment; it yields its milk, it serves as beast of 

 burden and drags the family and the household 

 goods from one place to another on a light sled; in 

 short, the Reindeer renders the nomad life of the 

 northern tribes possible. 



I know of no other animal in the life and treat- 

 ment of which the burden of servitude, the curse of 

 slavery, is expressed so clearly as in the case of the 

 Reindeer. There is no doubt that the wild Scandi- 

 navian Reindeer is the ancestor of the domestic ani- 

 mal of that country. Tame ones, released from the 

 restraint and protection of Man. revert to savagery 

 in a very short time and become entirely assimilated 

 to the wild ones after a few generations. Yet there 

 hardly exist two creatures differing so very widely 

 in shape and temper as the tame and wild Reindeer. 

 The former is a miserable slave of a poor, miserable 

 master, the latter a proud monarch of the lofty 

 mountains, a Chamois-like Deer, possessing all the 

 noble qualities pertaining to so beautiful a creature. 

 He who has seen free Reindeer in troops and tame 

 ones in herds and compared them, can hardly be- 

 lieve that both are children of the same ancestor. 

 Description The Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) is 

 of the Rein- a stately creature of Stag-like pro- 

 deer, portions, though not of a Stag's 

 height. Its length varies between five feet eight 

 inches and six feet eight inches; the tail measures 

 five inches, the height at the withers is three feet 

 seven inches. The antlers are inferior in size and 

 still more in beauty to those of the Stag, yet consti- 

 tute a stately ornament. The body of the Reindeer 

 differs from that of the Stag, perhaps only by the 

 greater breadth of the hinder quarters; but the neck 

 and head are much clumsier and less beautiful, the 

 legs considerably shorter and the hoofs much more 

 unsightly than those of the Red Deer. The Reindeer 

 also lacks the proud bearing of the Stag: it carries 

 itself much less haughtily than that noble animal. 

 Tlie neck has about the same length as the head; it 

 is sturdy and laterally compressed and barely curves 

 upwards; the head is slightly narrower in front, with 

 a blunt, bulbous snout, straight along the nasal 

 ridge. The ears are shorter than those of the Stag, 

 but of similar formation; the eyes are large and 

 beautiful; the tear-pits small and covered with tufts 

 of hair. The thighs are thick, the legs stout and 

 short, the hoofs very large, broad, flatly compressed 

 an'd deeply cloven ; the rudimentary toes reach to 

 the ground. In tame Reindeer the hoofs increase 

 so much in width that one would have to separate 

 the wild and tame ones into different species, if he 

 considered the structure of the hoofs alone. The 

 wild Reindeer are generally of a much more dainty 

 and attractive appearance than the tame ones, which 

 by contrast seem deformed and plain. 



The coat is closer than that of any other Deer. 

 The lower portion of the neck is adorned with a 



mane, which sometimes reaches to the chest, and the 

 hair on the cheeks is also longer than on other parts 

 of the- body. In winter the hair is nearly three 

 inches long all over, and as the hairs lie very close 

 together they form a coat of over one and a hali 

 iiH lies in thickness, which explains the fact that the 

 Reindeer can easily hear an exceedingly cold tem- 

 perature. The general color varies in the different 

 individuals and also according to the season. The 

 wild Reindeer change their coat and its hue, rather 

 regularly, twice a year. In spring the copious winter 

 hair is shed and is replaced l>v a short, gray coat; 

 then other hair gradually mingles with it, its white 

 tips entirely overshadowing the gray hair, until the 

 whole animal appears whitish gray, strikingly re- 

 sembling the tint of melting, dirty snow. The tame 

 Reindeer is of a dark brown hue in summer. In 

 winter the brown color disappears, and the white 

 hair predominates; but there are many Reindeer 

 which are characterized in winter only by a greater 

 length of hair, the line remaining unchanged. The 

 antlers of the female are smaller and have [ewer 

 spurs than those of the male. 

 Early History and Some naturalists regard the Ameri- 



Present Range of can Reindeer as a distinct species, 

 the Reindeer. anc j Dase their opinion on the fact 

 that the European Reindeer is also found on the 

 American continent and differs from the other in 

 dimensions, hue and habits. The Caribou (Rangifer 

 caribii) is said to be larger than the Reindeer, to 

 have smaller antlers and a darker color and live 

 more solitarily, and mainly in woods. 



The high north latitudes of the Old World, and 

 if the American Caribou is counted as belonging 

 to the same species, also the northmost habitable- 

 regions of the New, are the native country of the 

 Reindeer. It is generally found north of the six- 

 tieth parallel in all countries; in some localities 

 descending as far south as the fifty-second parallel 

 ami ranging northward invariably beyond the eight- 

 ieth parallel. One finds it wild in the glacial moun- 

 tains of Scandinavia and Lapland, in Finland, in the 

 whole of northern Siberia, in Greenland and on 

 the northmost mountains of continental America, 

 and it also lives on Spitzbergen. It was introduced 

 into Iceland over a century ago, and it has com- 

 pletely reverted to the wild state on that island and 

 has spread in considerable numbers over all of its 

 mountains. In Norway I found it in considerable 

 numbers on the Dovrefjeld. It also occurs on the 

 lofty mountains of Bergen and certainly descends 

 there as far south as to the sixtieth parallel of north 

 latitude. 



The Domicile and The Reindeer is a genuine mountain 

 Habits of the child, like the Chamois, and is found 

 Reindeer. only on the broad, treeless ridges of 

 the northern mountains, called by the natives fjelds, 

 and overgrown with moss and a few mountain plants. 

 " In Norway the belt between three and six thou- 

 sand feet of altitude forms its usual place of abode. 

 It never descends in those regions to the forest belt, 

 anxiously avoiding woods in general. The barren 

 table-lands and slopes, between the rocks of which 

 grow some straggling plants, or those vast elevated 

 plains, which are thinly covered with reindeer-moss, 

 must be regarded as the home of these animals, and 

 it is only in migrating from one range of mountains 

 to another, that they traverse the boggy, morass- 

 like, low plains; and even during such changes of 

 location do they anxiously shun the forest. Pallas 

 states that the Reindeer is occasionally to be found 



