86 REPORT ON INTRODUCTION OP 



REINDEER, CERVUS TARANDUS. RANGIFER TARANDUS, GREENLAND- 

 ICUS-BARREN GROUND CARIBOU. R. T. CARIBOU- WOODLAND 

 CARIBOU. 



By Charles Hallock, M. A., M. B. S., 



Ex-editor of Forest and Stream; author of "Our New Alaska," " Tl\e Sportsman 

 Gazetteer," and other standard ivorks on Natural History and Field Sports; member of 

 the Biological Society of Washington. 



Reindeer (Cervus tarandus) are not only boreal but circumpolar animals, occupy- 

 ing a habitat in common with the ice bear, musk ox, arctic hare, lemming, snowy 

 owl, ptarmigan, Eskimo dog, and arctic fox. Though comparatively little known, 

 popularly or scientifically, outside of their frozen domain, they are the most 

 widely distributed mammal on the globe, inhabiting portions of Greenland and 

 Labrador, the margin of Smith Sound,* both sides of Hudson Strait,t the entire 

 breadth of British America east and west of the Rockies, parts of Alaska, Siberia, 

 Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Finland, Lapland, Norland, and the northern half of 

 Russia and Scandinavia. Their range belts the entire Arctic Circle without a 

 break, and extends from the northernmost limit of polar exploration southward 

 to latitude 52° (longitude 140° west), where the reindeer meets the Bengal tiger in 

 the jungles of the Amoor River, in Asia. In North America it drops to latitude 55° 

 on Eskimo Bay, in eastern Labrador; to latitude 59° at Fort Churchill, on the west 

 side of Hudson Bay; to latitude 55° in the Peace River country, and touches latitude 

 54° on the Aleutian peninsula, in Alaska. In middle Russia the limit is about lati- 

 tude 55°, while in Norway it would not be below latitude 65°, owing to the proxim- 

 ity of the Gulf Stream, which renders the climate too mild for them, as well as for 

 the growth of its favorite food, the reindeer moss. In the Glacial period this suc- 

 culent lichen (Cladonis rangifarina) grew much farther south, of course, and the 

 range was proportionately extended, remains of this animal having been found in 

 the middle United States and in Italy, according to Prof. Theo. Gill. Reindeer can 

 not be acclimated in regions where the conditions are unfavorable. Experiments in 

 various countries have prove'd this. 



Closely allied with the arctic reindeer is the forest variety, known in America as 

 the woodland caribou, whose conterminous range enlarges the foregoing area by a 

 belt several degrees in width in a southerly direction, which includes Newfound- 

 land, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the Lake Superior region, and extends almost 

 unbroken across the continent, dropping even below the forty-ninth parallel in 

 Minnesota. This variety is also found in the forests of northern Montana, Idaho, 

 Oregon, and Washington. Both species are gregarious and migratory, moving north 



* Hall, the Arctic explorer (1861), speaks of a dog on Smith Sound taking a reindeer 

 by the throat and cutting its jugular. 



t According to Tuttle, of the Canadian Dominion Survey (1884), the north side of 

 Hudson Strait is a waste of alternate rock ridges and boggy ravines. Captain 

 Spicer, a retired whaler from Connecticut, was found 30 miles from North Bluff, in 

 latitude 63°, longitude 70°, operating a trading post to the tune of $25,000 worth of 

 furs per year. Reindeer and white hares were abundant in the vicinity. 



