102 SPORT IN NORWAY. 



antlers assume a blood- red appearance; but if rainy 

 they are quite white. But towards the rutting season 

 the horns of the bucks are often of a darkish-brown hue, 

 owing to the does "staling" upon ^them. In the 

 case of the young bucks the above operation takes 

 place later on in the season, and of the does last of 

 aU. 



Hjorthois, in his description of Gudbrandsdal, speaks 

 of " a smaller deer, which he considers to be the roe, 

 and which, he says, is sometimes to be met with 

 in large flocks." With all due deference to the dis- 

 tinguished naturalist, this statement is, I am inclined to 

 think, incorrect; for the roe deer cannot live under 

 the same conditions of climate as the reindeer, and 

 has, moreover, never been found in Norway. Still, 

 several of the peasants believe in their existence, 

 though their testimony is no more to be relied on 

 than that of Hjorthois or the worthy Pontoppidan. 



The phenomenon of the appearance of these smaller 

 animals has been a sore puzzle to Scandinavian natur- 

 alists; but it is now generally supposed that they 

 have been reindeer which have haunted the loftiest and 

 most inaccessible regions, where a severe climate and 

 scanty nourishment have been ill calculated to produce 

 physical development; or else, that they have been 

 stragglers from tame herds, and have subsequently 

 relapsed into their original wildness. Either of the 



