FOREST, AND ITS FAUNA 41 
small roedeer (Capreolus caprea) also occurs, and the 
musk-deer (Moschus) is found occasionally, though its 
true home lies further south. The last is an aberrant 
form, almost hare-like in its habits, and much per- 
secuted for the sake of the scent gland of the male 
(see p. 85). 
Most of the animals above mentioned are at least 
largely forest-feeders. That is, twigs and leaves both 
of coniferous and deciduous trees, berries, nuts, &c., 
bulk largely in their diet, and grass is relatively less 
important. The most northerly forms of those men- 
tioned are the woodland reindeer and the elk, both 
very characteristic of the taiga. In North America the 
woodland reindeer is larger than the tundra form, 
perhaps because it is better fed, and chiefly haunts 
marshy ground. Within the forest, as outside of it, it 
depends largely upon mosses and lichens. In winter it 
leaves the swamps for the dense forests on the higher 
ground. 
In the Asiatic taiga some interesting observations 
on woodland reindeer have recently been made by the. 
members of Mr. Carruthers’ expedition to Mongolia. 
Here, on the Sayansk divide, the members of the 
expedition found traces of a forest-haunting form 
which spends the summer in the rhododendron scrub, 
near the upper limit of the forest. In the winter the 
animals seek the open hill-tops, which are swept bare 
of snow by the wind, and there feed upon ‘ reindeer 
moss ’. 
The elk in both the Old and New Worlds is a true 
forest animal, compelled to feed upon trees and bushes 
by the fact that its long legs and short neck prevent it 
from grazing on the ground, except where the grass is 
very long. 
