REINDEER-MOSS. 305 



how they can maintain life during" the long" polar 

 night, when vegetation is deeply buried in the snows. 

 Little however of a precise nature is known about their 

 habits and the habits of the musk ox when existing 

 in high northern latitudes may differ considerably from 

 those of the same animal inhabiting the bush near the 

 arctic circle. It is however probable that like the 

 reindeer, the musk ox of polar regions subsists mainly 

 upon certain lichens and mosses, which though not 

 very attractive looking food, are found in vast quanti- 

 ties, we think we may say, in all rocky areas of the Arctic 

 Zone, wherever in fact the rock protrudes above the snow. 

 The reindeer moss (Cladonia Rangiferind) which is 

 as we have said, one of the nutritive lichens of the 

 Polar Zone, in some districts completely covers the 

 rocks, to a thickness of some two inches or so, with 

 a dense bluish grey carpet of a sort of dry hard moss- 

 like growth. The Lapland forests for example are full 

 of it ; and its peculiar appearance, together with the 

 long pendant tree mosses of a somewhat similar colour 

 hanging from the branches, imparts to these forests a 

 look of hoary antiquity which is very striking. Wherever 

 this apparently indigestible moss is found in plenty, the 

 reindeer appears to flourish and grow fat ; while else- 

 where they seldom seem to thrive or keep in good 

 condition. Professor Baron Nordenskiold states with 

 regard to this, that 



"it has been well ascertained that reindeer can be fed on 

 grain, arctic grasses, lichens, and rushes, and thrive on them 

 for a while, but cannot go altogether without reindeer moss, 

 for any considerable length of time, without falling off in 

 condition. * 



* Nordenskiold' s Arctic Voyage, pp. 176 200. 

 VOL. II. 20 



