DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 87 



and south with the annually recurring seasons, often in large herds, and both are of 

 especial economic value iu their respective localities, affording a variety of subsis- 

 tence to the carnivorous fauna which are associated with them, as w r ell as to large 

 nomadic and constant human populations which occupy the illimitable wastes of 

 the subarctic zone and the territories contiguous to them. Both are likewise sus- 

 ceptible of domestication, though the boreal variety is by far the most tractable; 

 and with it this paper has chiefly to do, more especially by reason of present efforts 

 to domiciliate it in Alaska. And in connection with this endeavor, and the urgent 

 economic necessity which has prompted it, the breeds of Siberia and Lapland 

 become of special interest, the former because that country is so immediately 

 adjacent and available as a source of supply for stocking our ranges, and the latter 

 because of the higher civilization of the people and the superlative domesticity of 

 their animals, feral instincts being much stronger with the Siberian reindeer. 

 Reference might also be made to the reindeer of British America., already an 

 important factor iu the hyperborean economy of that country, and likely to become 

 still more so should the Alaska experiment prove signally successful. Fortunately, 

 we are in possession of all needful data through the painstaking researches of Bush, 

 Vincent, and Ogilvie, who have made the reindeer of Siberia, Lapland, and the 

 northwest territory respectively an incisive study during long periods of residence. 



Zoologists have not been quick to discover the exact affinity between the reindeer 

 of the Old World and its North American prototype, the barren ground caribou, so 

 called, while the difficulties in reconciling the latter with its more southern con- 

 gener, the woodland caribou, have proved even greater. But the sum and conclu- 

 sion of the whole matter, so happily determined of late by a thorough comparative 

 study of all the various groups which occupy the boreal belt and contiguous regions, 

 would be to make the three several forms specifically identical, with no structural 

 differences between them, except such as would naturally result from difference of 

 climate, food, and environment. *" 



We find that throughout all its known habitat there are plaius reindeer and forest 

 reindeer, just as there are plains and woods bison, the former occupying the vast 

 moss-bearing tundra which blanket the circnmpolar world, and the latter ranging 

 through conterminous regions lying farther south; the warmer habitat, with its 

 more abundant provender, producing the larger but less hardy animal. In parts of 

 Lapland and northern Scandinavia, where there are no expansive levels like the 

 moss-bearing tundra of Siberia, Alaska, and subarctic British America, that variety 

 recognized as the plains reindeer is obliged to seek its favorite food on the moun- 

 tains above the forest belts, and so are locally known as "mountain reindeer." But, 

 taxonomically, there are but two forms the w T orld over, specialized in scientific 

 nomenclature as Tarandus rangifer greenlanfdcus and T. rangifer caribou, of the 

 genus Cervus, the one designating the arctic variety, or barren-ground caribou, and 

 the other the southern variety, or woodland caribou. The latter are much more 

 widely distributed in America than in Europe or Asia, and as the word reindeer has 

 but recently beeu adopted iu this country, with the coming of the domesticated 

 herds from eastern Siberia, and the name caribou is absolutely unknown abroad, it 

 would seem that specification would be simplified, if not bettered, by designating 

 the boreal moss scraper as reindeer and the southern woods ranger as caribou. 



The chief differences mentioned by writers who have discussed the problem are 

 the smaller size of the northern form and its proportionally larger horns, the average 

 weight of the first being not more than 175 pounds the world over, while the latter 

 would reach 300 pounds, and sometimes attain 400 pounds, and even more. The 

 livers, gall bladders, and metatarsal glands have also entered into the problem of 

 differentiation. There are certainly marked variations in coloration as well as in 

 the selection of food, the one species subsisting chiefly on ground mosses, to which 

 the other adds a diet of tree moss, grass, and browse when available. Quoting emi- 

 nent Newfoundland authority, the color of the woodland caribou ranges from wood 

 brown in early summer to nearly white in -winter. The mane above the neck is 



