THE ARCTIC FAUNA. 153 



the close resemblance between the Spitsbergen and 

 Greenland forms with the Barren-ground Caribou, that 

 he based some speculations on a former land-connec- 

 tion between these countries on this circumstance. 



We have, therefore, records of the present or the 

 former existence of a Reindeer resembling the North 

 American Barren-ground form in Greenland, Spits- 

 bergen, Scandinavia, Ireland, and the South of 

 France. In England the remains of the two forms 

 occur mixed, but I do not know in how far either the 

 one or the other predominates. The Barren-ground 

 Reindeer is in Europe altogether confined to the 

 west; the most easterly locality that I am acquainted 

 with being Rixdorf, near Berlin. The majority of 

 the European remains of the Reindeer seem to 

 belong to the Siberian or Woodland variety, and it 

 would appear as if some intercrossing between the 

 two forms had occurred in Lapland, since it is stated 

 that in that country the Reindeer is somewhat inter- 

 mediate between the two. All the Asiatic remains 

 also resemble the Woodland variety. 



As far as I know, no explanation has been 

 attempted to account for this peculiar range in 

 Europe of the two forms of Reindeer. But if we look 

 more closely into the mode of occurrence of the Rein- 

 deer remains, we find that the Barren-ground form, 

 seems to have existed in Western Europe long before 

 the other variety made its appearance there. It was 

 pointed out by Struckmann that the Reindeer in 

 Southern Europe occurs in older deposits than in 



