96 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



a period of five years from 1903, in the hope that the 

 stock of wild deer may be maintained, and even 

 increased. 



It was on the Dovre Fjeld that I first hunted the 

 reindeer, with his dirty -gray -coloured horns, slightly 

 palmated, his wide cloven hoof, his thick brittle-haired 

 hide, and his white-fat-covered haunches. As a sport- 

 ing trophy I have never thought much of his head. 

 The antlers he carries do not, in my opinion, approach 

 for beauty those of the red-deer tribe, though they are 

 longer, more curved, and with more points. His 

 western relative, the caribou of North America, is a 

 bigger beast, carrying a larger head ; but even in his 

 case the same remarks apply. Perhaps it is the 

 inartistic colour of the horns that detracts from their 

 appearance. 



There is, however, no manner of doubt as to the 

 excellence of reindeer venison, and it is usually 

 extremely fat. To the uninitiated it is at first a puzzle 

 how the reindeer, a fine lusty beast a shade heavier 

 than the red-deer, can not only live, but thrive, in his 

 rocky fjeld home, above the line of green forest and 

 meadow-grass. The mystery is explained in two 

 ways : first, by the nutritious character of the brown - 

 looking fj eld-grass in summer, which partakes some- 

 what of the nature of the bunch-grass of the Rockies ; 

 and, second, by the reindeer moss already alluded to. 

 This extraordinary vegetable grows, like a lichen, on 

 the rocks of the high fjeld, and yet contains a kind of 

 glue which is most nourishing. It forms the chief 

 winter feed of the deer, without which they could not 

 possibly live through a northern winter. How this 

 fattening food is produced on rocks at such an eleva- 

 tion in a northern climate is one of those problems of 



