382 Notes on the "Races of Rein Deer. [No. 4, 



Still it is rare that even the Woodland race in America attains to 

 the weight of 350 lbs. ! One, 4f ft. high at the shoulder, mentioned 

 in Capt. Cartright's Journal, weighed, his quarters 270 lbs., the head 

 20 fl>s., offal 20 lbs. — 310 lbs. in all : he had an inch of fat on his 

 ribs, and \\ in. on his haunches. Another, " an old buck of the 

 dwarf breed," five inches lower at the shoulder and which had forty 

 points to his antlers* (the former having but 29), " was in excellent 

 order, weighing in his quarters 314 lbs., with 2\ lbs. of fat on his 

 haunches, and 1\ in. thick on his ribs." A buck of 27 stone is also 

 mentioned, which, " had he been killed in prime of grease, would 

 have stood at least 31 stone, or 434 lbs. A very fat old doe weighed 

 154 lbs., and another 155 lbs. But all of these were particularly fine 

 animals." In Lapland, " a fat ox-Deer weighed 122 lbs., and had 

 10 lbs. of tallow. This is, I suppose," continues Mr. Laing, " as 

 much as the tame animal in general will feed to. The wild race, 

 which comes considerably further south, is a good deal larger." 



The domestic Deer of Lapland, however, vary even in neighbouring 

 parishes. " None that I saw," relates the Hon'ble A. Dillon, " were 

 larger than our common English Fallow Deer. Those in Russian 

 Lapland, near Kola, are said to be much taller ; while the wild ones 

 in Spitzbergen, though exceedingly fat, are far inferior in size." 

 " The Deer which I observed, as I approached Tornea," remarks Sir 

 A. C. Brooke, " and those I afterwards met with beyond it, confirmed 

 me in what I had been told was the fact, that the further they live 

 north, the larger they are ; and when I saw those which were brought 

 to England by Mr. Bullock from the Roraas mountains between 

 Christiania and Drontheim (being the southernmost limit of tbeir 

 range in Scandinavia), their very great inferiority in size to the Deer 

 of Finnmark removed all doubt on the point. Large, however, as is 

 their size, I have been assured by persons who have made successive 

 voyages to Spitzbergen, for the purpose of taking this animal and the 

 Walrus, that the Rein Deer found on that island exceed very consider- 

 ably in bulk those of Finnmark ; and that their tallow alone, which is a 

 principal object in their capture, in many of them amounts to the 

 extraordinary weight of 40 lbs. Respecting the size of the Spitz- 



* Capt. Cart wright obtained a pair " with 72 terminal points." (" Journal of 

 16 years' residence in Labrador.)" 



