94 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



the best of my knowledge and recollection, in the 

 Throndhjem Amt, or south of it. North from 

 Throndhjem the various tribes of Lapps those 

 curious nomadic little people who appear to have 

 billeted themselves from time immemorial on the 

 people of Norway, cuckoo-fashion, and to have made 

 themselves free on the Norske highlands without 

 payment of rent, and simply by right of user were 

 numerous enough. Their main possession and source 

 of food, clothing, and house-covering were the herds 

 of tame reindeer they always had with them. 



So there was a clear line of demarcation to the 

 north Lapps and tame reindeer, and none of the wild 

 variety ; tame and wild being as different from one 

 another in habits and wariness as domestic sheep and 

 the Ovis montana of the Rockies ; to the south, on the 

 wide and high fjelds between Throndhjem, Bergen, 

 and Christiania, no Lapps and no tame herds, but 

 plenty of the wild reindeer. 



Gradually during the past twenty years the Lapps 

 and their tame herds have come further south ; and 

 it does not require much exercise of the imagination 

 to realize what this meant for the wild deer whose 

 domain was thus encroached upon. 



No game laws and no close time could prevent the 

 poaching of wild reindeer under these conditions, in 

 season and out of season. The Lapp was master of 

 the fjeld. 



Above the elk-forest that I rent with a friend on the 

 west side of the Gula Valley is a fine stretch of open 

 rocky fjeld, covered here and there with the glutinous 

 white reindeer moss that Nature has thoughtfully, and 

 no doubt intentionally, provided for the support of the 

 particular deer that is part of the indigenous wild life 



