100 THE HEATH. 



plentiful supply to almost the only animal that 

 can endure the cold. So hardy is the Reindeer 

 Moss, that neither snow nor frost injures it ; but, 

 since the latter would render it so rigid as to pre- 

 vent the animal from browzing on it, the Provi- 

 dence that placed it there has provided a mantle 

 for its protection, a covering of snow, which, while 

 it shelters the plant, is very easily removed by the 

 feet of the deer, who is instructed by an unerring 

 instinct both where to look for its food, and how 

 to obtain it. " These wait all upon thee, that 

 thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 

 That thou givest them they gather. Thou openest 

 thine hand, they are filled with good." 



There is a kind of moss which abounds on 

 exposed heaths and mountains, and is also very 

 serviceable to the Laplander, though of far less 

 importance than the Reindeer Moss.* It is of a 

 dark green colour, and resembles a juniper branch, 

 or the twig of a fir-tree, only very much smaller. 

 When it grows in boggy places it often attains such 

 a size that it may be made into brooms. It bears 

 its seed-vessel on a long, erect and bare stalk, and 

 is surmounted by a brownish cap, composed of 

 matted hair. Linnaeus says of this, " The Lap- 

 landers cut out a surface of this, as large as they 

 please, for a bed, separating it from the earth 

 beneath; and although the shoots are scarcely 

 branched, they nevertheless are so entangled by 

 the roots as not to be separable from each other. 

 This mossy cushion is very soft and elastic, not 

 growing hard by pressure ; and, if a similar por- 

 tion of it be made to serve as a coverlet, nothing 



* Polytrichum commune. 



