284 ZOOLOGY. 



nutritious. The food of the elk varies greatly: it eats 

 grass and herbage as well as leaves and twigs of hard- wood 

 trees. 



The reindeer, or woodland caribou, inhabits the north- 

 ern regions of America, Europe, and Asia. In the United 

 States it still occurs in northern Maine, and is not uncom- 

 mon in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, abounding in 

 Newfoundland and Labrador. The female reindeer has 

 antlers as well as the male. The old males shed their 

 horns usually before Christmas, but the young males carry 

 them later, the yearlings till spring, and the females later 

 still, until their young are born. The reindeer's foot is 

 very broad and thin, and the accessory or hinder hoofs are 

 of more use in supporting the body in deep snows or in 

 marshy places than the dew-claws of any other deer. The 

 hair is unusually long and crinkled, and underlaid by a 

 dense coat of fur. The skin is used by the inhabitants of 

 Labrador as well as the Esquimaux for making water-tight 

 boots. The principal food of the reindeer is lichens, par- 

 ticularly the " reindeer moss." 



The barren ground caribou is much smaller than the 

 other species; it inhabits the treeless arctic border of the 

 continent, and its habits are more arctic than any other 

 ruminant of this continent except the musk-ox. It is 

 more migratory than the woodland caribou, traversing in 

 its migrations some ten degrees of latitude southward from 

 the Arctic Ocean. 



The moose (Fig. 315) is an awkward, ungainly crea- 

 ture, and is the largest of the family, its weight being from 

 700 to 1400 pounds. The antlers are large and spreading, 

 broadly palmated, and wanting in the female, while the 

 nose is long and flexible, and the ears enormous. It for- 

 merly ranged from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast north 

 of latitude 43° to latitude 70°, but now it is confined to 

 northern Maine, to Montana and Alaska, as well as to the 

 forests of portions of British America. In summer the 

 moose eats grass and moss, in the winter it browses on the 



