/ 



THE AMERICAN REINDEER. 



129 



,1 



round tlie edge of a barren to get a shot. Both Mr. Bar- 

 nard, and the author of " Ten Years in Sweden," allude 

 to the female reindeer using her horns in winter to pro- 

 tect the fawns from the males, thus rightly accounting 

 for this singular provision of nature in the case of a 

 gregarious species in wliicli the males, females, and 

 young herd together at all seasons. 



Another misrepresentation has aj)peared with regard 

 to the reindeer : it has been compared, when obliged to 

 cross a lake on ice, to a cat on walnut-shells ! I cannot 

 conceive any variation in a point so intimately connected 

 with its winter habits on the part of the European rein- 

 deer, if the two are, as I believe, identical in configura- 

 tion and subservience to cxistenc^e under precisely similar 

 circumstances ; but for the cariboo I can aver that its 

 foot is a beautiful adaptation to the snow-covered country 

 in which it resides, and that on ice it has naturally an 

 advantage similar to that obtained artificially by the 

 skater. In winter time the frog is almost entu-cly ab- 

 sorbed, and the edges of the hoof, now cpiite concave, 

 grow out in thin shar}) ridges ; each division on tho 

 under surface jiresenting the ap})(\iranco of a huge 

 mussel-shell. According to "The Old Hunter," who has 

 kindly forwarded to me some specimens shot by himself 

 in Newfoundland in the fall of 18G7 for comparison with 

 examples of my own shot in winter, the frog is absorbed 

 by the latter end of Nov(nnber, when the lakes are 

 frozen ; the shell grows with great rapidity, and the 

 frog does not fill up again till spring, when the antlers 

 bud out. With this singular conformation of the foot, 

 its great lateral spread, and the additional assistance 

 afforded in maintaining a foot-hold on slippery surfaces 



i 



I 



