THE CARIBOU 355 



REINDEER {Rangifer tarandus). 

 Coloured Plate XXVI. Fig. 2. 



Just as the Prong-horned Antelope affords an exception 

 to the otherwise universal rule that the hollow-horned 

 ruminants do not shed their horns, so the Reindeer is an 

 exception to the rule that in the solid-horned ruminants the 

 antlers belong only to the male. In the Reindeer both 

 sexes have antlers, though those of the male, often nearly 

 five feet in length, are quite unlike those of the female. In 

 both cases the antlers originate further behind the eyes than 

 in most of the Deer tribe. In the males are particularly 

 noticeable the brow tines, which are palmated in a 

 special degree well over the animal's face. This share-like 

 expansion, larger in one tine than the other, forms a useful 

 tool with which to burrow in the snow in search of lichens, 

 mosses, &c. The antlers of the female are smaller, 

 slenderer, and with less palmation. Really, Reindeer antlers 

 are seldom exactly alike in any two animals, and often in 

 the same animal the two antlers differ widely from each 

 other. 



The Reindeer is found in the Arctic regions of Europe, 

 Asia, and America, and though it differs considerably in 

 size in different regions, there is a consensus of opinion 

 that there is really but one species. In America, the 

 Caribou, as the Reindeer is called, is smaller in the barren 

 lands of the North than it is in the more southern wood- 

 land region. In Europe, as late as the sixteenth century, the 

 Reindeer existed in Poland ; in the time of Julius Caesar it 

 was found in the Black Forest, and in still earlier periods as 

 far South as the Pyrenees. Nowadays it does not extend 

 further South than the northern shore of the Baltic Sea. 



The Reindeer possesses a characteristic Deer-like form, 

 with a stout heavy neck and short limbs, the whole build 

 denoting considerable power. . The feet are marked by the 

 wide cleft and the well-developed lateral hoofs, as in the elk. 

 An American buck of the larger variety stands about four 

 and a half feet high at the withers, and an exceptionally fine 

 animal will weigh four hundred pounds. Dark brown, 



