120 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



hair. The summer skins are better in this respect than the winter 

 skins. The hide is thick and impervious to water to a marked degree, 

 and by a certain mode of tanning practiced by the Lapps it can be 

 made perfectly impervious. On the face and lower part of the legs 

 the skin is particularly thick and durable, for which reason the Lapps 

 use these portions for footwear. 



A unique characteristic of the species is that both males and females 

 have horns or antlers. They shed them annually in March and 

 April, after which a new pair immediately start to grow. The young 

 animal has cylindrical horns — nearly straight — which grow to a 

 foot or more in length the first summer, but as it grows older the 

 horns become palmated and curve outward and backward, and 

 prongs, or branches, increase in number annually up to the age of 

 seven or eight years. From that time the prongs decrease in number 

 until in old animals there may be only a few points on the outer 

 ends of the horns. In the prime of life one or both horns produce 

 prongs which reach down over the face, called ''brow antlers." The 

 size of the antlers varies with the size of the animal. Antlers of 

 females are smaller than those of males. Occasionally a pah' of 

 antlers is found measuring 4 feet in length and weighing as much 

 as 40 pounds, but this is extreme; half of these figures more nearly 

 represents the average. It is not easy to see just what function 

 they fulfill in the animal economy. They appear to be a hindrance 

 rather than a help in the struggle for existence. It must be a vast 

 drain on the system to furnish nourishment for their rapid and pro- 

 digious growth, and they are tender and of little use for defense 

 during the summer months while growing. They are at this season 

 covered with skin, wliich is abundantly supplied with blood vessels 

 and a fine coat of hair, when they are technically said to be "in the 

 velvet." They are full grown about the time the breeding season 

 begins in the fall of the year, and then the bulls use them freely on 

 each other, but otherwise they are not often used for either defense 

 or offense; instead, they strike their antagonist with their fore feet. 

 The horn is soft, spongy, and not strong. Nor does the animal use 

 the antlers in digging away the snow to reach the moss underneath, 

 according to the observations of reindeer herders and others; this 

 is done with the feet and nose. 



The writer has not learned if any of the modern dehorning fluids 

 have been used to suppress the growth of horns on domestic reindeer, 

 but it would appear to be a subject worth experimentation. So 

 far as known, the natural life of the caribou is about fourteen years, 

 as is also the case with the reindeer. It does not reach its prime until 

 six or seven years old. 



