EXCELLENCE OP REINDEER FLESH. 223 



means of weighing these deer, but I consider that 

 the best stags must have exceeded three hundred 

 pounds in clean weight. I think the flesh of the 

 reindeer is the richest and most delicious meat, 

 wild or tame, which I ever tasted, with the excep- 

 tion of a fat eland, and a diminutive West Indian 

 animal called by the negroes the Lapp* ( Ccelogenys, 

 or Cavia Paqp). Unlike the flesh of most wild an- 

 imals, the venison of the reindeer is not improved 

 by keeping, and I think it is never better than the 

 same day, or even the same hour, that the animal 

 is killed. When it is kept long the fat gets dark 

 colored, and acquires a rank and unpleasant taste 

 and odor. 



In the summer months they do not live in large 

 herds together. An extensive valley may perhaps 

 contain forty or fifty deer, but they are all in small 

 independent companies of two, four, or six ; and I 

 have seldom, if ever, seen more than eight in one 

 herd. In the winter season, however, when they 

 come down to the islands and the wide flats on the 

 sea-shore, I imagine they congregate in great num- 

 bers, and at that time they travel over long distances 

 of ice and land in search of food. 



The hair of the reindeer is very long, thick, and 

 close, and is of a slaty-gray color, verging into white 

 about the stern and belly. The hinds have horns 



* After a somewhat extensive experience in that line, I am 

 inclined to award to the Lapp the palm of being the best cu- 

 linary animal in the world. 



