274 



POPULATE HISTORY OF LICHENS. 



browse on the Lichen."* It is also frequently collected like 

 hay as fodder for cattle during winter, and for the reindeer 

 on journeys. Parry in the narrative of his Fourth Yoyage 

 mentions his officers collecting supplies of this Lichen as 

 provender for the reindeer, which he used in the capacity of 

 horses ; he adds, it ™ required a great deal of picking" to se- 

 parate it from the moss among which it usually grows. The 

 daily quantity of cleaned " Reindeer Moss " — as it is popu- 

 larly denominated — necessary for each animal on a journey 

 he estimates at four pounds ; but, he remarks, it can easily 

 remain for five or six days without food. To prepare it as 

 fodder for cattle, in some northern countries, hot water is 

 poured over it; it is then mixed with straw, and a little 

 salt sprinkled over the mixture. Cattle so fed are said to 

 produce delicious milk and butter, while their flesh becomes 

 fat and sweet. Bucke, in his ' Harmonies of Nature/ speaks 

 of small cows, by feeding on this Lichen, whose milk be- 

 comes wholly cream. The stag, deer, roebuck, and other 

 wild animals also feed on it abundantly during winter. But 

 it is not only serviceable as food to the lower animals, — 

 man himself is frequently compelled to use it in times of 

 scarcity. It is sometimes powdered, mixed with flour, and 



* Vide Linnseus, ' Flora Lapponica/ p. 332. 



