ORDER RUMINANTIA. 83 



hum of one of these on the wing is sufficient to alarm a 

 whole herd, and put it to flight. This is the chief cause 

 of the migrations to the woods and mountains, where they 

 are more free from their annoyance : the old deer, whose 

 hide is harder than that of the young, suffer least ; and 

 it is the yearling which of all is most exposed to the 

 painful boring operation of the CEstris, performed for the 

 purpose of depositing its eggs under the skin of the ani- 

 mal. There are few wild rein-deer remaining in Lapland, 

 but herds of them may still be seen in Dalecarlia. They 

 exist in Spitzbergen and over the whole of Northern 

 Russia, where the Tungusians rear a large breed, which 

 they ride more generally than harness to the sledge. Baron 

 Cuvier after a laborious investigation, has proved that they 

 never extended further south than the Baltic and the 

 northern parts of Poland. 



The North American Rein-deer, or Caribou, are still 

 very imperfectly known. There appear to be three va- 

 rieties, one or more of which may actually form different 

 species. The first is known among the Canadian voyagers 

 as the Caribou des Bois, the Wood-rein ; it is large, dark- 

 coloured in summer, and presumed to be the species with 

 flat-bladed horns, the beam being nearly vertical and un- 

 adorned with many snags*. The second resides in the 

 dreary regions of the rocky mountains of central North 

 America, and has been supposed to be the Mule-deer of 

 Lewis and Clark. We suspect it to be the Kistuhe of the 

 Kluche Indians, and perhaps the horns of Cervus Coronatus 

 before described may belong to this. The third and 

 smallest, living in the islands of the Polar Sea, Greenland, 

 and Labrador, is the most common. Pennant and Edwards 

 have described it, and we have a figure of the male. All 

 are said to be whitish in winter, but the latter species most 



* Since writing the above, we have met with a specimen which 

 confirms the conjecture. 



