Nov. 17, 1881 | | 
among different herds, and frequently by this the owner- 
ship can be known. The reindeer are never housed, 
for they like cold weather and snow. Food is never given 
them, and they will not touch the moss that has been 
gathered, unless brought uptodoso, They often will not 
even raise their heads as you approach them, and remain 
quiet when the Lapps pitch their tents, as we have seen. 
Some years prove unfavourable to their increase, on 
account of the amount of snow, which prevents them 
from digging for food ; the herd then becomes weak and 
emaciated, and many die. The spring is also a bad time 
for them ; the snow melts during the day, and a thick 
crust forms at night, so that their feet break through, 
causing lameness and disease. The horns of the males, 
which often weigh forty pounds, attain the full size at the 
NATURE 
age of five or six years, those of the cow at about four: 
years. The time of dropping the horns in a herd varies 
from March to May ; in the adult animal they attain their 
full size in September or at the beginning of Cctober. 
After the age of eight years the branches gradually drop 
off. The shoulder-blades appear a little high, occasion- 
ing a slight hump or protuberance. Without the reindeer 
the Laplander could not exist in those northern regions : | 
ET 
| it is his horse, his beast of burden; it affords him food, 
clothing, shoes, and gloves. Domestic reindeer are a 
curious admixture of wildness and tameness. In some 
respects they are greatly superior to other cattle; in a 
herd they are very easily managed; they usually keep 
close together, and in the winter season remain where 
they have been left to feed. When on the march, with 
the help of dogs, they go in a solid mass, and a herd 
does not scatter unless wolves are after them; but in 
summer they often wander a long distance when left by 
tnemselves, as is often the case. When harnessed they 
become uneasy and distrustful, and great caution has to 
be taken not to startle them. Often trained reindeer, 
like horses, become refractory or vicious, and very diffi- 
cult to manage, and then the Lapp shows his skill. The 
speed of the reindeer varies very much according to the 
time of the year, October, November, and December 
being the months in which they are fleetest, as then they 
are fresh from their summer pasture; the cold weather 
strengthens them, and they are not exhausted from dig: 
ging the snow, not yet very deep, to procure their food. 
The rapidity of their gait depends much en the state of 
the surface. If this is well packed or crusted, and if 
Reindeer digging in the snow. 
previous furrows have been made, they go very fast. 
Much depends too upon the distance, and whether the 
country is hilly or not, with a long range of slopes. Cn 
the rivers, over well-packed snow and a good track, the 
animals can go twelve or fifteen miles the first hour, and 
down a long mountain-slope twenty miles, and even 
more. They can travel five or six hours without stop- 
ping, the first hour rapidly, the second more slowly, and 
towards the fifth or sixth quite slowly, for by that time 
they require rest and food. Early in the winter, when | 
they are in good condition, one can travel with a swift 
reindeer one hundred and fifty miles in a day, where the 
country is not very hilly and the way good, and easily 
enough one hundred miles. The colder the weather the 
greater is the speed ; seventy or eighty miles is a good 
average, but they were slow at the season of which I | 
write.”’ 
The chapter on the Lofoden Islands gives a great deal 
of information about the extensive fisheries of cod, in 
which over 700 fishing-boats are employed. 
We had marked several other extracts relating to the 
domestic life of the Norwegian feasants in the high 
north, and to the interesting people of Dalecarlia ; but 
enough has been given to show our readers that, while 
the narrative of these travels is free from the exciting 
scenes witnessed in Gorilla Land, it is not wanting in 
much that will be read with pleasure and remembered 
with profit. 
NOTES : 
WE take the following from the Zimes :—The medals in the 
gift of the Royal Society for the present year have been awarded 
by the Council as follows:—The Copley medal to Prof. Karl 
Adolph Wurtz of Paris, For. Mem. R.S., for his discovery of 
the organic ammonias, the glycols, and numerous other investi- 
gations which have exercised considerable influence on the pro- 
gress of chemistry ; the Davey medal to Prof. Adolf Baeyer of 
Munich for his synthesis of indigo; a Royal medal to Mr. 
Francis Maitland Balfour, F.R.S., of Cambridge, for his 
| numerous and important contributions to animal morphology, 
and more especially for his investigations respecting the origin 
of the uro-genital organs and the cerebro-spinal nerves of the 
vertebrata, and for his work on the development of the elasmo- 
branch fishes; a Royal medal to the Rev. John Hewitt Jellett of 
