The Reindeer. 181 



toun, and Pi-ince Patrick, upon the other ; but never in such 

 Quaibeis as to induce anyone to call it a migration. Deer have 

 never been seen, or any other herbivorous animal, crossing Bar- 

 row Sti-ait, or Melville Strait, either going north or south. Having 

 thus disposed of the migration theory, we will next touch upon 

 the general habits of these wonderfully constructed creatures, wh'', 

 Avithout any coating of blubber like the bear and the seal, are 

 able to pass unscathed through a pitiless winter in a climate rang, 

 ing, as far as is yet known, fLom zero to 65*^ minus, a temperature 

 wiiich strikes like cold steel at the vital powers of a well-clad 

 man, and rends iron and rocks with its resistless power- 

 McCliire's discovery^ ixtge 293. 



5. Habits of the Reindeer. Their average size and weght 

 approximate mostly to those of the ordinary fallow deer of 

 our English parks. An exceptional case is sometimes seen in 

 some lordly stag who though, like Tennyson's " many-wintered 

 crow," admirably fitted to lead his herd, and forming a very fine 

 object in an arctic solitude, would be uncommonly tough and 

 strong eating any where but in 76° north latitude. They are by 

 no means graceful creatures at any age ; the joints are large and 

 powerful in proportion to the size of the animal ; the divided hoofs 

 are very large, and from the animal being obliged to raise its feet 

 high when going over the snow, its gallop has none of that beauti- 

 ful spring which characterises the red deer of our isles, though the 

 pace is a telling one, and soon carries the reindeer clear of any- 

 thing but the long-winded long-legged wolf. 



The stags cast their antlers, and the does drop their young, in 

 May or June, about the time of the first thaws ; the males and 

 females are then not often found together, unless it be some gay 

 Lothario, with half a dozen admiring spinsters — an exceptional 

 case however ; and the female deer are at this season usually in 

 small herds with their fawns ; the little creatures — all eyes, ears, 

 and legs — taking alarm at the slightest appearance of danger. 

 The summer vegetation fattens the bucks and does amazingly, and 

 the fawns grow apace, all three having a comparative holiday, 

 and getting into condition to meet the trials of the coming winter, 

 while the wolf and the fox, their sworn foes, are devoting their 

 kind attention to the infant seals and bears, or attending to their 

 own little domestic duties. Indeed, in the height of the arctic 

 summer, the swampy state of the lowlands and the cutting eftect 

 of the stony hills, as shown in the state of our poor dogs' feet and 



