230 



D E E It. 



as already mentioned, the females which arc in lawn 

 do not drop their horns till they have brought forth. 

 It' the male is mutilated, it has the effect of making 

 the horns remain on for one whole year ; but after 

 this they are shed at the same season as those of the 

 entire animals ; and, as is the case with cattle, they 

 increase rather than diminish after the operation. 

 This might be expected, inasmuch as the energy 

 which is divided in the entire animal goes wholly to 

 the formation of horns in the other. The rutting 

 season is in October, at which time the males growl 

 something in the same manner as fallow-deer. They 

 have an apparatus in the throat, which we believe has 

 not been detected in any other of the genus, namely, 

 a membranous sac, between the thyroid cartilage 

 and the os hyoidcs, opening by a slit into the larynx, 

 and capable of being inflated with air, somewhat 

 similar to that in the howling monkeys ; but what 

 effect this may have on the sounds which they utter 

 has not been ascertained. 



The fawns are usually dropped in May, they are 

 one or two, but rarely three ; when dropped they 

 have rndimental horns, and these become snags an 

 inch in height in the course of two weeks, so that in 

 this respect they differ from all the deer of warmer 

 climates. 



They are excellent swimmers, and ride so lightly 

 in the water, that, half their backs are above the sur- 

 face ; their broad feet strike with great force, and 

 impel them so fast in the strongest currents and across 

 the broadest rivers, that a boat well-manned can 

 scarcely keep pace with them. When defending 

 themselves, they strike downwards with the horns, 

 but do not gore ; they kick with violence, and repel 

 the wolf with success ; but their most dangerous 

 enemy is the glutton, who is reported to drop down 

 upon them from the branch of some tree while they 

 are off their guard, and both that animal and the 

 bear are apt to watch in trees, and drop down upon 

 them as they pass. The feet of the rein-deer pro- 

 duce a cracking noise when they run, by the hoofs 

 striking against each other. 



Rein-deer are remarkably well provided with the 

 means of finding their way. The nictitating mem- 

 branes of their eyes move with nearly the same faci- 

 lity as those of birds ; so that they can proceed 

 directly against the heavy falls of snow which are so 

 common in that country in the early part of the win- 

 ter. Their sense of smelling is equally acute ; and 

 by that alone they can not only find their way in the 

 darkest nights, but conduct their master with perfect 

 safety in his sledge, at times and through places where 

 human sagacity would be utterly at fault. 



There is no animal, indeed, so serviceable to man 

 in any country as the rein-deer is to the Laplander ; 

 and if he were deprived of it he could not by possi- 

 bility exist. With its assistance, however, his con- 

 dition is more comfortable than one would readily 

 suppose, and there is nothing which he could substi- 

 tute in the place of this most useful animal. It feeds 

 upon those plants which form almost the extreme of 

 vegetation, the buds and twigs of the small arctic 

 shrubs, and the lichens which grow abundantly where 

 nothing else will grow ; and thus he does not require 

 to sow grasses, prepare meadows, or cultivate any sort 

 of vegetable, but may be said to obtain the labour 

 of this excellent servant for nothing. All that he has 

 to do is to protect his little herd from the bear and 

 the glutton, and guide them to their changes of pas- 



ture as the different seasons of the year require. In 

 the wild state they are gregarious, and when domes- 

 ticated they are perfectly social, very mtich attached 

 to eacli other, and obedient to the orders of ilie herds- 

 man ; an elder of the herd generally takes the lead, 

 ml the rest follow him with a most willing obedience. 

 The herdsman teaches this leader to obey his whistle, 

 and the rest will follow after, at almost any signal, 

 such as a stamp of the foot, or even a look. They 

 draw the sledge over the snow with great rapiditv, 

 and apparently with less fatigue than any other ani- 

 mals of draught. No doubt the hard and smooth 

 surface of the snow is a sort of railway, or at least 

 bears some resemblance to it ; but still it is no small 

 feat for two deer to draw a man in a sledge over 

 "three skies" of the Lapland mountains in twenty- 

 hours. A " sky" is a mode of estimating distance 

 understood in most mountainous countries ; it was 

 once very general in the islands of Scotland, and is 

 still used in those places where there are no roads. 

 It means a new horizon, which the traveller obtains 

 every time that he comes upon the top of a new hill. 

 These skies are, of course, of very different lengths ; 

 but from the character of the country the average 

 length of three taken together may be reckoned at 

 not less than one hundred miles ; and we are not 

 aware of any other means by which a man could be 

 drawn the same distance over snow during twenty- 

 four hours of a sunless night. 



But this is not the only advantage which the Lap- 

 lander derives from the rein-deer : the flesh of the 

 animal is the most substantial part of his food, and its 

 milk serves him in various ways. It is used recent ; 

 it is coagulated into cheese, the whey is used for 

 drink ; and we believe in some instances fermented 

 and distilled into a liquor something analogous to that 

 which the Tartars make from the milk of the mare. 

 The skin of the rein-deer, which is warm and strong 

 and pliant, serves for a clothing, for blankets, for 

 covering the sledge, and for almost every purpose for 

 which we apply cloth or leather. The tendons, which 

 are very tough, furnish thread ; the horns are manu- 

 factured into a variety of domestic utensils ; and even 

 the intestines of the animal have their domestic uses, 

 while the tongues, which are considered luxuries in 

 most countries, give even the poor Laplander an ex- 

 port trade, and make even him a citizen of the world. 



There is no country in Europe so much infested 

 with the plague of flies as Lapland, especially in the 

 swampy and shady places, where the gnats are almost 

 as tormenting as the musqnitoes in tropical countries ; 

 to escape from these the Laplander and his herd take 

 to the open hill in the summer ; but even there the 

 animal is not secure from insect annoyance. Even 

 in the most elevated and airy of its mountain pas- 

 tures, the rein-deer gad-fly (CEstris tarundus, Linnaeus,) 

 finds out the herd, and the hum of a single insect is 

 sufficient to throw the whole into a state of the 

 greatest agitation. The object of the fly is to deposit 

 its eggs under the skin of the animal, which it gene- 

 rally succeeds in doing ; and it is said to be when 

 the rein-deer are about two years old that they are 

 most annoyed by this insect. 



Estimated by this, his most valuable possession, 

 the Laplander is often a man of no small wealth, for 

 his herd sometimes amounts to as many as a thousand ; 

 and as two is the average production of each, and the 

 number of females far exceeds that of males, this herd 

 furnishes him with an abundant supply of all the 



