174 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



they quit their hold. If struck, they turn about 

 and bite, and will make a noise like a dog." 

 This description, though it may be amplified 

 even to the borders of romance, is doubtless 

 true in its essentials. 



We may next allude to the reindeer, as 

 affording us a fair example of regular although 

 limited migration. In the Arctic regions of 

 Europe and Asia, this animal in its wild con- 

 dition herds in troops, which travel from the 

 woods to the open hills, and back again accord- 

 ing to the season. The woods are their winter 

 refuge ; here they subsist on the long pendent 

 lichens which hang in festoons from the trees, 

 on the white lichen which covers the ground, 

 and on the twigs of the birch and willow. 

 With the return of spring they begin their 

 migration from the forest to the mountain 

 ranges, partly in order to obtain their favourite 

 food, and partly to escape the heat and the 

 countless myriads of mosquitoes which then 

 begin to swarm, as well as the gadfly, a dreaded 

 tormentor. So imperative is the instinct that 

 impels the reindeer to these migratory move- 

 ments, that it cannot be modified in the 

 domestic race, which constitutes the chief 

 wealth of the Laplander. Hence the Lapland 

 peasant is obliged to lead a semi-nomadic life, 

 taking periodical journeys of no common toil, 

 from the interior of the country to the moun- 

 tains which overhang the Lapland and Norway 

 coasts, and thence back to the interior. The 

 reindeer, or caribou, in the high regions of 



