DERIVATION OF " REINDEER " 



draught, and as a milk and flesh producer. Indeed 

 of the Laplanders and some of the reindeer keepers 

 of the North, Caesar's famous remark of another race 

 might be repeated : " Cibus eorum lacte caseo carne 

 constat." Its outward appearance is not on the whole 

 unsuggestive of its near neighbour geographically 

 speaking, the moose. It has an approach to the long 

 and thick upper lip of the latter, while the somewhat 

 clumsy feet and legs, and the often palmated horns, add 

 to the resemblance. Its feet are planted firmly upon 

 the ground, firmly even to splayness ; and this is in re- 

 lation to an easy transit over yielding snow and marshy 

 land. It is exactly paralleled in the divaricated hoofs 

 of Speke's antelope, which also inhabits swampy, and 

 therefore treacherous, ground, but in Africa. Its 

 young are not spotted as are those of most deer. Its 

 pelage alters in colour from summer to winter as it 

 also does in many other deer. As for other points in 

 its structure, the reindeer is quite obviously a deer. 

 Reindeer the vernacular, and Rangifer the Latin, name 

 of this animal appear to be mainly derived from the 

 same word ; at least it is certain that the termination 

 " fer " does not mean here as that termination in Latin 

 generally does mean, a carrier or bearer. It is simply 

 the Latin ferum a beast, which of course is the same 

 as deer in English (= Thier in German). As for 

 " rein " it would seem to be Laplandish. The European 

 and Siberian reindeer had in past days a wider range 

 than now. In prehistoric times it of course wandered 

 south through Britain and France ; and its effigies 

 scrawled upon tusks by primaeval man are well known 

 to everyone. But further than this the reindeer seems 

 to have inhabited the extreme north of Scotland as late 

 as the twelfth century, when in Caithness it was hunted 

 for sport. The American reindeer are called by the 

 American zoologists Caribou ; this is not an Indian 



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