306 REINDEER BURROWING FOR MOSS. 



Strange to say, the quality of this moss seems to 

 improve under the action of severe frost, and therefore 

 it is never in better order than during the depth of 

 an arctic winter. At this time of course, it is mostly 

 deeply buried beneath a covering of snow, several feet 

 in depth and the reindeer and probably also the musk 

 ox are then obliged to burrow for it through the snow, 

 exactly like rabbits. The wild deer at these times are 

 often come upon by hunters, with their bodies entirely 

 concealed in these deep holes which descend in a 

 slanting direction, and from which perhaps the tail or 

 hind quarters of a reindeer project, showing where the 

 animal is steadily working away, and shovelling out 

 the snow, in order to reach the precious food below; 

 large areas of land are often found to be honeycombed 

 with these snow burrows, and in this curious way 

 reindeer manage to sustain life, and even to remain 

 fat and in good condition, in the midst of what other- 

 wise seems a desolate waste of snow, where there 

 would not be nourishment enough for a mouse. We 

 venture to suggest that musk oxen probably obtain 

 their food in this way, when wintering in high northern 

 lands, such as the Parry Islands, or Grinnell Land; the 

 prairie buffalo (Bos Americanus] for instance, it has 

 long been known, when overtaken by heavy snows 

 upon the prairies, used to subsist in a very similar 

 way ; only it was not with the feet, but with the broad 

 and powerful nose, that they ploughed up the snow 

 until they reached the grass beneath ; in this way, old 

 buffalo bulls used sometimes to exist throughout the 

 whole winter on the Saskatchewan and other rivers in 

 the Hudson Bay Territory, where the snow lay several 

 feet in depth for months together; yet it was only 



