REINDEER AND MUSK-OX 



They waded across the creek and came straight toward us, up the sloping 

 bank where we were waiting, nearer, nearer, until we could see their eyes, their 

 smooth round limbs, the velvet on their horns, until within five or six yards of 

 us, the drivers saying scarce a word, and the owner in front looking at them as 

 they came up without making any call or movement to attract them. After 

 giving us the benefit of their magnificent eyes and sweet breath they began to 

 feed off back up the valley. 

 Thereupon the boys, who 

 had been loitering on the 

 stream -side to catch a 

 salmon trout or two, went 

 around them and drove 

 them back to us. Then 

 the deer stopped feeding 

 and began to chew the cud 

 and to lie down, with eyes 

 partly closed and dreamy- 

 looking, as f profoundly 

 comfortable, we strangers 

 causing them not the slight- 

 est alarm though standing 

 nearly within touching dis- 

 tance of them. Cows in a 

 barnyard, milked and pet- 

 ted every day, are not so 

 gentle. Yet these beautiful 

 animals are allowed to feed 

 at will, without herding to 

 any great extent. They 

 seem as smooth and clean 

 and glossy as if they were 

 wild. Taming does not 

 seem to have injured them 

 in any way. I saw no mark 

 of man upon them. 



They are not so large 

 as I had been led to sup- 

 pose, nor so rough and bony 

 and angular. The largest 

 would not much exceed 

 three or four hundred 

 pounds in weight. They 

 are, at this time of year, 

 smooth, trim, delicately 

 moulded animals, very fat, 

 and apparently short- 

 winded, for they were breathing hard when they came up, like oxen that had 

 been working on a hot day. The horns of the largest males are about four feet 

 long, rising with a backward curve, and then forward, and dividing into three 

 or four points, and with a number of short palmated branches putting forward 

 and downward from the base over the animal's forehead. Those of the female 

 are very slender and elegant in curve, more so than any horns I have seen. 



79 



Reindeer — "Horns in the \'elvet." 



Courtesy of Carl Lomen, Nome, Alaska. 



