478 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Carelia are seen near the frontier. But "in Ladoga-Carelia wild Reindeer 

 have been observed even during the last years, principally on the grounds 

 belonging to the monastery of Valamo, where they must not be molested." 



The Finland Reindeer is thus very nearly exterminated in the greatest 

 part of its former habitat and it look almost as a bitter irony of fate that it 

 should not be recognized and discerned as a separate race before it was in 

 so imminent danger of becoming entirely extinct. . . . 



The forest-clad area of Finland, which was the principal habitat of this 

 animal, is or was fully continuous with that of Northern Sweden, and it must 

 ... be probable that the Finlandic woodland Reindeer also extended its 

 distribution into the latter country. ... It is a fully established fact that 

 in former days wild Reindeer occurred in the forests of Northern Sweden, and 

 it is also well known that these were larger than the Reindeer of the moun- 

 tains, even the wild ones. [From an account by Hollsten in 1774] it is ap- 

 parent that still during the later part of the eighteenth century a race of very 

 large wild Reindeer lived in the wildernesses, wide moors and forests, below 

 the haunts of the Lapland Reindeer, thus to the east of and below the 

 mountains and fells that form the watershed of the peninsula. These Rein- 

 deer lived thus in other districts and had different biological habits than 

 the Lapland Reindeer, with which they did not mix, or only accidentally 

 did so during the rutting season. There can hardly be any doubt that this 

 large Woodland Reindeer was identical with the one described above as 

 Rangifer tamndus fennicus .... It has already been mentioned above that 

 the tame Reindeer of the Laps belong to the latter race [R. t. tarandus], 

 but there exists still in some parts of Northern Sweden a smaller number of 

 tame Reindeer, that all the time live in the woodland and on the moors, 

 never ascending the mountains. [These Reindeer are larger that the others, 

 and it may be assumed that they] have descended from the formerly exist- 

 ing wild Woodland Reindeer, or more probable still have originated as 

 products from crossing the tame Reindeer (the typical R. tarandus) with 

 wild stags of the Woodland race. 



Miller writes (1912, p. 985) of this Reindeer: "Now probably 

 confined to the wooded portions of Finland, east to the Kola Penin- 

 sula, and nearly extinct." 



Schulman [1910] has shown that the Reindeer must have once 

 occurred throughout Finland but that it had disappeared in western 

 and central Finland by the end of the eighteenth century (Jacobi, 

 1931, p. 147). 



In Russia the range extends across Karelia to the White Sea, 

 Lake Ladoga, and Lake Ilmen, and through the Dvina Basin. The 

 former southern limit extended from Lake Ilmen across the Valdai 

 Hills through the Governments of Tver and Vladimir to the Kiasma, 

 Volga, Kama, and Bielaia Rivers, and in the Urals as far south 

 as latitude 52 N., northeast of Orenburg. (Jacobi, 1931, pp. 128, 

 148-149.) This author would even refer to fennicus the Reindeer 

 of the Irtish and the Ob Basins in western Siberia. 



Pallas (1776, pt. 3, p. 597) recorded Reindeer from as far south 

 as the Caucasus Mountains. 



The Reindeer is now rare in European Russia, and its range has 

 been greatly reduced. In the middle of the last century it extended 



