THE RAIN-DEER. 337 



the animal at the commencement of the rutting 

 feafon, are ftrong indications of a redundance of 

 nourishment. But we have ftill farther- proofs 

 that this redundance is exceiTive, or at lead 

 greater than in any other fpecies ; for it is pecu- 

 liar to the rain-deer alone, that the female has 

 horns as well as the male, and that, even when 

 the males are caftrated, they annually fned and 

 renew their horns *. In the Hag, the fallow-deer, 

 and die roebuck, who have undergone this opera- 

 tion, the horns remain always in the farrmcondition 

 they were at the time of caftration. Thus, of all 

 other animals, the rain-deer affords the moil con- 

 Vol. VI. Y fpicuous 



* Uterque fextis cornibus eft. -Caftratus quotannls 



cornua deponit ; Linn.fyji. ?iat. p. 93. It is upon the autho- 

 rity of Linnaeus alone that 1 have advanced this fact, of 

 which I am unwilling to doubt ; becaufe, being a native of 

 Sweden, and having travelled into Lapland, he had an op- 

 portunity of being well informed in every article regarding 

 the rain-deer. I acknowledge, however, that the exception 

 is fingular, as, in all other animals of the deer-kind, caftration 

 prevents the renewal of the horns. Bclides, a pofitive tefti- 

 mony may be oppofed to Linnaeus. Caflratu rangiferis Lap- 

 pones utuntur. Cornua cq/iratorum non dicidunt, et cum hirfuta 

 flinty femper pills lu: . Hidden, Rangifer. Jenae 1697. 



But Hidden, perhaps, advances this fait from analogy on- 

 ly ; and the authority of fuch a fkillful naturalift as Linnaeus 

 is of more weight than the tcftimonies of many people who 

 are lefs informed. The known fad, that the female has horns 

 like the male, is another exception which gives fupport to 

 the nrft ; and it is ftill farther fupported by the practice a* 

 mong the Laplanders, of not cutting away the tefticles, but 

 only compreffing the feminal veflels with their teeth j for, in 

 this cafe, the aclion of the tefticles, which feems neceflary to 

 the production of horns, is not totally deftroytd, but only 

 weakened. 



