III.] MARKED REINDEER. 105 



It still, however, occurs on Ice Fjord in very great numbers, 

 which, were the animal protected, would speedily increase. 



That so devastating a pursuit as that which goes on year after 

 year on Spitzbergen can be carried on without the animal being 

 extirpated, has even given rise to the hypothesis of an immi- 

 gration from iSTovaya Zemlya. But since I have become better 

 acquainted with the occurrence of the reindeer in the latter 

 place, this mode of explanation does not appear to me to be 

 correct. If, therefore, as several circumstances in fact indicate, 

 an immigration of reindeer to Spitzbergen does take place, it 

 must be from some still unknown Polar land situated to the 

 north-north-east. In the opinion of some of the walrus-hunters 

 there are indications that this unknown land is inhabited, for 

 it has repeatedly been stated that marked reindeer have been 

 taken on Spitzbergen. The first statement on this point is to 

 be found in Witsen {Noort oostcr gecUelte van Asia en Europa, 

 1705, ii. page 904), where the reins are said to have been 

 marked on the horns and the ears ; and I have myself heard 

 hunters, who in Norway were well acquainted with the care of 

 reindeer, state positively that the ears of some of the Spitz- 

 bergen reindeer they shot were clipped — probably, however, 

 the whole has originated from the ears having been marked 

 by frost. That no immigration to Spitzbergen of reindeer from 

 Novaya Zemlya takes place, is shown besides by the fact that 

 the Spitzbergen reindeer appears to belong to a race differing 

 from the Novaya Zemlya reindeer, and distinguished by its 

 sm-vUer size, shorter head and legs, and plumper and fatter body. 



The life of the wild reindeer is best known from Spitzbergen. 

 During summer it betakes itself to the grassy plains in the 

 ice-free valleys of the island, in late autumn it withdraws — 

 according to the walrus-hunters' statements — to the sea-coast, in 

 order to eat the seaweed that is thrown up on the beach, and in 

 winter it goes back to the lichen-clad mountain heights in the 

 interior of the country, where it appears to thrive exceedingly 

 well, though the cold during winter must be excessively severe ; 

 for when the reindeer in spring return to the coast they are 

 still very fat, but some weeks afterwards, when the snow has 



hunting captain, Sievert Tobiesen, were compelled in 1872-73 to winter at 

 North Goose Cape, they shot during winter and spring only eleven 

 reindeer. Some Russians, who by an accident were obliged to pass six 

 years in succession somewhere on the coast of Stans Foreland (Maloy 

 Broun), and who, during this long timfe, were dependent for their food on 

 what they could procure by hunting without the use of fire-arms (they had 

 when they landed powder and ball for only twelve shots), when the three 

 survivors were found and taken home in 1749, had killed two Imndred and 

 fifty reindeer (P. L. le Roy, Relation des Aventures arrivks a quatre 

 matelots Rushes jetUs par une tempete pres de Vide deserte d' Ost- Spitzbergen, 

 siir luquelle Us ont passe six ans et trois /nois, 1700^. 



