256 LABRADOR 



many of the yearlings were covered by the stags. The 

 domesticated herds in Siberia have thus increased to such 

 an extent that it is possible to buy full-grown animals at 

 fifty cents per head, and Mr. Vanderlip, in his Search for 

 a Siberian Klondike, states that he could purchase them 

 as low as twenty-five cents a head as food for his dogs. 

 Similarly, George Kennan tells me that he bought many 

 at fifty cents apiece for dog food in Siberia. It has even 

 been stated that the fecundity of reindeer may be liable to 

 become a positive nuisance. 



In the bot-fly the deer has an enemy which greatly 

 worries him, but which does not appear seriously to injure 

 him. The fly pierces the outer skin and leaves the egg 

 underneath, where the larva grows and develops through 

 the winter, in probably the only place where it would not 

 freeze. In the spring the fly hatches out and leaves its 

 birthplace. These large bot larvae projecting under the 

 skin are picked off and eaten by the Alaskans as a choice 

 delicacy. In the ethmoid cells of these deer, at the root 

 of the nose close to the skull, there are also always to be 

 found a number of large maggots in various stages of de- 

 velopment. These give rise to a coryza, fortunately not 

 fatal, which leads the animal to sneeze out the larvse in 

 great quantities. We have otherwise found no disease 

 likely to trouble the recently imported reindeer in New- 

 foundland. 



During fifteen years of medical mission work on the coast 

 of North Newfoundland and Labrador, I have discovered 

 that one out of every three of our deaths on the coast is 

 due to tuberculosis; that one out of every three native 

 babies died before reaching the age of one year. More- 



