102 SPORT IN NORWAY. 
antlers assume a blood-red appearance; but if rainy 
they are quite white. But towards the rutting season 
the horns of the bucks are often of a darkish-brown hue, 
owing to the does “staling” upon them. In the 
case of the young bucks the above operation takes 
place later on in the season, and of the does last of 
all. 
Hjorthéis, in his description of Gudbrandsdal, speaks 
of “a smaller deer, which he considers to be the roe, 
and which, he says, is sometimes to be met with 
in large flocks.” With all due deference to the dis- 
tinguished naturalist, this statement is, I am inclined to 
think, incorrect; for the roe deer cannot live under 
the same conditions of climate as the reindeer, and 
has, moreover, never been found in Norway. Stull, 
several of the peasants believe in their existence, 
though their testimony is no more to be relied on 
than that of Hjorthois or the worthy Pontoppidan. 
The phenomenon of the appearance of these smaller 
animals has been a sore puzzle to Scandinavian natur- 
alists; but it is now generally supposed that they 
have been reindeer which have haunted the loftiest and 
most inaccessible regions, where a severe climate and 
scanty nourishment have been ill calculated to produce 
physical development; or else, that they have been © 
stragelers from tame herds, and have subsequently 
relapsed into their original wildness. Tither of the 
