EEMAEKS ON THE EEINDEEE AND HIPPOPOTAMUS. 155 



being produced about the head and causing inflammation, probably through the 

 obstruction of the lachrymal ducts*. 



The fact mentioned by M. Lartet, that the Reindeer whose remains are in 

 question had been killed at different stages of the annual mutations of the 

 antlers, and consequently at all seasons of the year in the same localities, appears 

 at first sight a strong objection to the general principle which I have advanced. 

 This objection, however, cannot be admitted as conclusive, in violation of a 

 strictly established natural law. There are two alternatives to account for the 

 observed anomaly. The one is that some having been killed at a distance in 

 their summer retreats, the antlered heads were conveyed by the hunters to a 

 common rendezvous as trophies of the chase ; the other, and the more probable, 

 that the herds, molested in the mountains, and hunted persistently from refuge 

 to refuge, broke at length from their retreats in quest of other less disturbed 

 localities, and were intercepted during their progress. I have already, in my 

 former communication, mentioned the tendency of this animal to go a long 

 distance when really alarmed ; and we may conceive that under continued molesta. 

 tion a herd might be driven in desperation to seek refuge even in its winter haunts 

 in the lowlands, however adverse to its instinctive habits the enforced migration 

 might be. 



But a system of destructive persecution, such as is here indicated, could not 

 possibly endure. It must end either in the total extirpation of the herds (which 

 is not probable), or their compelled emigration to distant regions affording 

 greater security a result in accordance with the hypothesis which I at first 

 advanced (see above, page 46). The southern parts of Gaul having been thus first 



* It seems almost superfluous to dwell longer upon the peculiar characteristics, so well known to natu- 

 ralists, -which distinguish the Reindeer from the other branches of the Cervidce. One peculiarity, however, 

 may he cited as proving irrefragahly that this animal has heen designed hy Nature to occupy constantly a 

 region where it can enjoy a comparatively cold temperature an end to be secured only by seasonal migra- 

 tion. Its hair is not shed in the spring like that of other varieties of the genus. Lengthening constantly, 

 and becoming more compacted, to meet the exigencies of the winter, the extremities of the hair acquire 

 gradually a lighter hue as they recede from the source of nourishment. With the approach of summer 

 these exhausted ends break off, leaving still a permanent coating, of the normal colour, adequate to the 

 protection of the bearer under the comparatively mild temperature of its summer retreat, but incompatible 

 with the extreme heat of the lower elevations. This condition, inseparable from the organism of the animal, 

 might of itself be adduced as argument against the coexistence in the same locality of the Eeindeer with 

 an animal so diverse in constitution as the Hippopotamus. Else we must forego the admission of that 

 constancy of Nature in all her varied operations of which the evidences are manifest. I think Saint-Pierre 

 alludes to the peculiar natural provision I have cited in his ' Harmonies de la Nature ; ' but I cannot find 

 the passage, if indeed it exists. 



