MAMMALS. 



635 



it is the most important domesticated animal. It is the beast of burden, 

 dragging the sledges of the Lapps over the snow, and carrying the 

 Kamtchadale astride its back. It is the chief source of food ; for not only 

 are they milked like our domestic cattle, but their flesh is eaten, and then 

 the hides, horns, and bones are put to a thousand and one uses. In Lap- 

 land herds of five hundred reindeer will sometimes be owned by a single 



Fig. 502. — Reindeer {Rungifer turandus). 



person ; while further to the east, where the animals are more abundant, 

 herds ten times as large are sometimes seen. The milking is a rather serious 

 undertaking, for they greatly resent any familiarity with the food of their 

 offspring. The deer is first caught with a noose as it stands in the yard, 

 and fastened to a tree or held by some person ; but even this does not 

 always keep it quiet, as it not unfrequently kicks over the milker, and 



