380 Notes on the Races of Bein 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 Kein Deer 

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

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

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

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

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

 But does the large or Woodland race of this animal anywhere 

 migrate to the sea-coast ? 



It is remarkable that the E-ein Deer has never been domesticated 

 in arctic America ; and the more so, as the immediate westem 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 " Kein Deer often pass, 

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

 Karnschatka, subsisting 011 the moss found on these islands during their passage" 

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

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

 They do not appear to inhabit them permanently. 



Cuvier has shewn, by a laborious investigaron, that, during the historie 

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

 the northern parts of Poland ; and, at present, as Sir O. 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 chínate, to the 50th 

 in Chínese 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 mueh hesitation that I include the Kein 

 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 bis time, 

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

 part of Canadá. Cliarlvoix, however, saw one killed at Quebec. The specimen 

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

 Harían 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 



