THE TUNDRA AND ITS ANIMAL LIFE. 77 



soul. Over the immense glacier and the quivering crust of the 

 unfathomable morass, over the boulder-heaps and the matted tops 

 of the dwarf -birches or over the mossy hillocks, over rivers and lakes 

 he runs or swims with his broad-hoofed, shovel-like, extraordinarily 

 mobile feet, which crackle at every step. In the deepest snow he 

 uses his foot to dig for food. He is protected against the deadly 

 cold of the long northern night by his thick skin, which the arrows 

 of winter cannot pierce, against the pangs of hunger by the indis- 

 criminateness of his appetite. From the wolf, which invariably 

 follows close on his heels, he is, in some measure at least, saved by 

 the acuteness of his senses, by his speed and endurance. He passes 

 the summer on the clear heights of the tundra, where, on the 

 slopes just beside the glaciers, the soil, belted over with reindeer- 

 moss, also brings forth juicy, delicate alpine plants; in winter he 

 ranges through the low tundra from hill to hill seeking spots from 

 which the snow has been cleared off by the wind. 12 Shortly before 

 this, having attained to his full strength and fully grown his branch- 

 ing antlers, he had in passionate violence engaged in deadly combat 

 with like-minded rivals as strong as himself until the still tundra 

 resounded with the clashing of their horns. Now, worn out with 

 fighting and with love, he ranges peacefully through his territory 

 with others of his kind, associated in large herds, seeking only to 

 maintain the struggle with winter. The reindeer is certainly far 

 behind the stag in beauty and nobility, but when one sees the great 

 herds, unhampered by the fetters of slavery, on the mountains of 

 their native tundra, in vivid contrast to the blue of the sky and 

 the whiteness of the snowy carpet, one must acknowledge that he, 

 too, takes rank among noble wild beasts, and that he has more 

 power than is usually supposed to quicken the beating of the 

 sportsman's heart. 



The tundra also possesses many characteristic birds. Whoever 

 has traversed the northern desert must have met one, at least, of 

 these, the ptarmigan: 



" In summer gay from top to toe, 

 In winter whiter than the snow ". 



