28 HARDY — -ON PROVINCIAL ACCLIMATIZATION. 



itive Indians of the northern coasts of America, as this animal has? 

 been applied from time immemorial by the Lapps. 



An eminent naturalist, Dr. Gray, in delivering his address in 

 the Nat. Hist. Section at the late meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at Bath, thus alludes to the latter fact : " The inhabitants of 

 the arctic or sub-arctic regions of Europe and Asia have partially 

 domesticated the reindeer ; and either Asiatics have peculiar 

 aptitude for domesticating animals, or the ruminants of that part of 

 the" world are peculiarly adapted for domestication ;" and he then 

 instances a variety of exemplifications, in their having domesticated 

 the yak in the mountain regions of Thibet and Siberia, the camel 

 and dromedary in central Asia, in southern Asia the zebra, and in 

 the Malayan archipelago various species of buffalo and wild cattle. 

 It may be stated, that modern geological discovery has placed the 

 original home of the reindeer in the high Alps of central Asia, 

 whence these animals, followed by their ever-accompanying human 

 associates, the Lapps, migrated to the northwest of Europe. As a 

 beast of burden, however, to traverse those treeless wastes answer- 

 ing to the snow-covered barrens of Lapland, the dog seems to have 

 answered all the purposes of the Esqviimaux and other arctic- 

 American tribes, whilst in more southerly and wooded regions, 

 a sledge-drawing animal would have no scope or sphere of employ- 

 ment. And viewing the animals in this light, the horae and the 

 ox which have accompanied Europeans, have left no desideratum 

 that could be supplied by either the moose or the carriboo. There 

 are, however, several undoubted instances of the applicabiHty of 

 the moose to draught. A few years since a settler on the 

 Guysboro' road, named Carr, possessed a two-year old bull moose, 

 which was perfectly tractable in harness. For a wager, he has been 

 known to overtake and quickly distance the fastest trotting horse on 

 the road, drawing his master in a sleigh, the guiding reins being 

 fastened to a muzzle bound round the animal's nose. Another 

 instance was that of a very large moose kept by a doctor in Cape 

 Breton, which he would invariably employ in preference to his 

 horse when wishing to make a distant visit to a patient, and in the 

 shortest time. It is very certain that in its youth the moose is 

 aue of the most tractable of animals ; but it is in the rutting season 



