Effects of Food and Climate on the Deer Tribe. 83 



ascertained, as in the case of other animals, that much depends 

 on situation. The Virginian deer decreases in size south- 

 wards in latitude, and the individuals of mountain regions are 

 relatively larger than the denizens of the plains ;* and the same 

 rule is applicable more or less to the reindeer. Indeed we 

 might suppose the arctic, barren ground, and caribou or wood- 

 land reindeers to be one species, subject to diversities in size and 

 dimensions of horn in each of the forms, the largest specimens 

 being procured in regions favourable as regards food, haunts, 

 climate, etc., while the reverse, amounting to a marked de- 

 terioration of race, obtains where these conditions are not so 

 conducive to the animal's well-being. 



There is evidently a similar deterioration of race taking 

 place in the eland in various parts of South Africa. I am 

 informed, on the authority of W. Bell, Esq., who has sojourned 

 for several years in that region, that the eland, once plentiful 

 all over Natal and the plains of the Orange Free State, is 

 now exterminated, excepting on the intervening mountains, 

 to which it has been repelled. Here, from having to undergo 

 rigours of climate foreign to its primordial state of existence, 

 a race has gradually been formed not only smaller in size, 

 but, from constant persecution and the requirements of 

 mountain life, are much more active, and their limbs and bodies 

 are more gazelle-like than their progenitors ; whereas the 

 former denizens of the plains, what between good pasturage 

 and other favourable conditions, became so fat and inert that 

 colonists and natives were in the habit of capturing them. 



Again, looking at the development of the senses in the 

 moose and caribou as being advantageous or otherwise in their 

 struggles for life, it will be found that the former relies to 

 the greatest extent for safety on smell and hearing, while 

 the latter has also powerful sight. Moreover, much as we 

 must be struck on viewing the massive proportions of the 

 moose, it is, after all, far from what would be called a hand- 



* Baird, Am. Jour, of Science, vol. xli., 1866, p. 12. 



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