THE NUMBER OF KEINDEEK IN NOEWAY. 29 



ficient venison for his family's use throughout the win- 

 ter, when he hunts no more that year. 



A few years ago, a singular accident happened on 

 the Dovre-fjeld. Some hunters were one day pursuing 

 a herd of more than a hundred reindeer, when the 

 animals approaching too near a precipice, the snow 

 gave way beneath their feet, and the whole herd fell 

 over and were killed. The peasants in the neighbour- 

 hood had a rich windfall of reindeer venison that season, 

 and were several days in removing the carcases of the 

 reindeer to their cottages. 



The reindeer is called in Norway reens-dyr. In 

 ancient times it was called hrein-dyr. In the begin- 

 ning of the eighteenth century, herds of three or four 

 hundred animals were seen at one time in the fjelds, 

 and now they are much more numerous. Nilsson, the 

 Swedish naturalist, informs us that reindeer are some- 

 times seen in extraordinary numbers. He has observed 

 them in the Swedish f jails, for the breadth of three miles 

 and a half, as thickly collected together as sheep in a 

 flock. " A number of hinds had recently calved, and 

 the fawns followed their dams. The herd extended so 

 far, that the eye could not embrace them all at once." 

 He compares the sight to the herds of antelopes in 

 the deserts of Africa, or to the extensive herds of 

 bisons to be seen on the prairies of America. 



There are, perhaps, at a rough guess, thirty or forty 

 thousand wild reindeer in Norway; and it is by no 

 means improbable that there are a great many more, 

 for the number killed annually by the hunters is com- 

 paratively small. 



The rutting season takes place in the beginning of 

 September for the old males, and rather later for the 



