380 Notes on the Maces of Rein Deer. [No. 4. 



their stead, they appear at first to be covered [as in all other Deer] 

 with a sort of skin, and till they come to a finger's length, are so 

 soft, that they may be cut with a knife, like a sausage, and are 

 delicate-eating even raw. This we have from the huntsmen's account, 

 who, when they are far out in the country, and are pinched for food, 

 eat them, which satisfies both hunger and thirst." Of course they 

 are then most highly vascular and full of blood ; and thus it appears 

 that this strange delicacy is not quite peculiar to the Chinese. 



Professor Pallas, tracing the geographical range of the Eein Deer 

 in Asia, notices the occurrence of this animal in the Kinyan Alps 

 in Mongolia, between the rivers Amur and Naun. (Zoogr. Bosso- 

 asiatica, edit. 1830, I, 203.) It can hardly migrate annually to the 

 sea-coast from that mountainous far-inland region, which migration 

 is held to be a necessity of existence with the Eein Deer of Lapland. 

 But does the large or Woodland race of this animal anywhere 

 migrate to the sea-coast ? 



It is remarkable that the Rein Deer has never been domesticated 

 in arctic America ; and the more so, as the immediate western shore 

 of Behring's Straits and the Aleutian Isles are inhabited by true 

 Esquimaux (Vide Von Wrangell, Sabine's Translation, pp. 343, 372), 

 who cannot but know of the domestic herds in the possession of their 

 neighbours the Tschuktschi ;* but a reason may well be, that where 



* By the way, Dr. Godman remarks that the wild "Eein Deer often pass, 

 in summer, by the chain of the Aleutian Islands, from Behring's Straits to 

 Kamschatka, subsisting on the moss found on these islands during their passage" 

 (i. e. from America to Asia). Pennant stated that " they are not found iu the 

 islands that lie between Asia and America, though numerous in Eamschatka." 

 They do not appear to inhabit them permanently. 



Cuvier has shewn, by a laborious investigation, that, during the historic 

 period, this animal never extended in Europe further south than the Baltic and 

 the northern parts of Poland ; and, at present, as Sir C. Lyell remarks, it 

 " can scarcely exist to the south of the 65th parallel in Scandinavia ; but 

 descends, in consequence of the greater coldness of the climate, to the 50th 

 in Chinese Tartary, and often roves into a country of a more southern latitude 

 than any part of England." Referring to Dekay's 'Natural History of New 

 York,' this author states — " It is with much hesitation that I include the Rein 

 Deer in the Fauna of our State ; but the representations of hunters lead me to 

 suspect, that, when the yet unexplored parts of the State have been more 

 thoroughly examined, its existence may be disclosed. Pennant, in his time, 

 asserted that the Rein Deer was not found further south than the most northern 

 part of Canada. Charlvoix, however, saw one killed at Quebec. The specimen 

 in the cabinet of the Medical College at Albany came from Nova Scotia ; and 

 Harlan asserts that it does not pass the State of Maine into the United States, 

 implying its existence there." Professor Emmons observes — " It is only a few years 



