Scandinavian Remdeer 25 



remarking that it is " astonishing to American mammalogists to find 

 Lydekker giving our woodland caribou, as distinct a species as ever existed, 

 as a sub-species of the Old World Rangifci- tarainliis.'' This, ot course, is 

 simply begging the question, as no one can say absolutely that such and 

 such an amount of variation in an animal necessarily constitutes a species. 

 It is purely a matter of opinion, and each and every writer who knows any- 

 thing about the subject is entitled to his own view. In the opinion oi the 

 present writer it is more important to grasp the tact that one peculiar type 

 of deer has a circumpolar distribution than to emphasise the distinct- 

 ness of the different local modifications of that type. And this, he main- 

 tains, is best effected by regarding the tormer as a single species, of wliich 

 the latter are geographical races. By giving to such races distinct specific 

 titles, the essential unity of this circumpolar type of deer stands in great 

 danger of being lost sight of Since the publication of the Deer of All 

 Lands, three more of these geographical phases of the reindeer have been 

 named and described by American writers. 



From all other members of the deer tribe reindeer are broadly dis- 

 tinguished by the circumstance that antlers are normally developed in the 

 female as well as in the male, and likewise by the early date at whicli 

 these appendages make their appearance on the forehead of the fliwns. 

 Female antlers are smaller and generally less complex than those of the 

 opposite sex. Another peculiarity of these appendages is that at least one 

 of the brow-tines of those of the male is palmated, laterally compressed, 

 and turned in towards the middle line. Above the brow-tines is another 

 pair of palmated tines which have been identified with the bez-tines of the 

 red deer. For some distance the beam of the antler then remains undivided 

 and straight, but about the middle of its course it is suddenly bent for- 

 wards, frequently giving off a small back-tine at the " elbow," after which 

 it expands, to terminate in a palmation of variable width and carrying a vari- 

 able number of tines on its hinder border. The antlers of young reindeer 



