26 R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 



waste, surrounded by a circlet of islands. It is to the valleys of 

 these islands that the Reindeer undoubtedly retire ; but nobody 

 travels very far afield in Greenland during the winter season, so 

 that we have no means of arriving at a very accurate confirmation 

 of this supposition. Dr. Hayes's people finding them in such 

 abundance at their winter-quarters goes further to prove this. 

 One of his men described to me the party as going over a little 

 ridge, and finding the deer as if in a preserve, like the cattle 

 in the pastures of his native Jutland; "we just shot them as 

 we wanted them." (See also Hayes's ** Open Polar Sea." passim.) 



Their food in Greenland consists chiefly of various species of 

 Empeti'um, Vaccinium, Betula, &c. ; and I can hardly think that 

 the traditional " reindeer-moss " ( Cladonia of various species) 

 forms any great portion of its subsistence, as that Lichen is no- 

 where found in Greenland in such quantity as to afford food for 

 any animal.* 



The Greenlanders have no idea of taming the animal ; indeed 

 its use to them would be trifling, as it cannot travel well on ice, 

 and the difiiculties of transporting supplies of food for it on their 

 long ice-journeys would be great. The Eskimo's sledge-travelling 

 is almost wholly confined to the frozen surface of the sea in 

 winter; and for this purpose dogs answers much better. The 

 meat is very good ; and the natives eat the half-digested vegetable 

 contents of the stomach along with blubber as a choice delicacy* 

 They prefer to eat the flesh in a putrid state. It is, with the 

 exception of the breast, for the most part lean. Clothes and 

 thread are made from the skin and sinews. The latter is much 

 sought after in districts where there are no reindeer. From the 

 horn are made all sorts of native implements ; but commercially 

 it is of no value in Copenhagen. However, I think its importa- 

 tion ought to answer, if brought to England, though to Denmark 

 it will not pay the freight. 



A calculation has been made that from 1840-45 there were 

 about 2,500 persons living in the principal reindeer district. 

 Every family of five persons, it was calculated, would use two 

 skins, <fec., which would make 5,000 for themselves ; and they 

 sent away 11,500; the total hunt was therefore calculated to be 

 about 16,000 annually. This sum has been taken for a minimum ; 

 for every hunter, besides using the skins for clothes, not only for 

 himself and family, also used them for tents, partitions in houses, 

 and for socks, &c., so that the number killed was in all likelihood 

 much greater. Of late years the skins traded by the natives have 

 decreased one half. Between 1851 and 1855 there were annually 

 shot 8,500 deer. It is difficult to say how much meat has been 

 consumed in that period ; but every deer may be put down at 

 80 lbs. of meat alone. This makes the meat, beween 1840 and 

 1845, amount to 1,280,000 lbs. annually, and between 1851 and 

 1855 to 680,000 lbs. 



* On the -vvestern shores of Davis's Strait I have known them to come 

 down to feed upon the Fuci exposed at low water, as do the cattle and red 

 deer in some places in the north of Scotland. 



