250 
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
they have consequently devised various expedients for 
its capture and destruction, vs^hich are minutely detailed 
by Captains Lyon and Franklin and Dr. Richardson. 
But there are few of the Siberian tribes to w^hom these 
animals are knov\^n who do not turn them to better 
account. The Koriacks possess immense herds of Rein- 
deer in a state of complete domestication, some of the 
richest proprietors owning, it is said, as many as ten or 
even twenty thousands. They use them for the purpose 
of draught, for their flesh, and for their skins, of which, 
as we learn from Von LangsdorfF and other travellers, 
they sell great numbers to their neighbours the Kamt- 
schadales, who keep no Rein-deer of their own. The 
Yakuts and the Samoiedes not only attach them to the 
sledge, but saddle and mount them as horses. Nothing, 
however, can more strongly demonstrate the gross 
ignorance of these barbarous tribes than the fact that 
throughout the whole of Northern Asia, the milk of 
the Rein-deer, which the Laplander esteems their most 
valuable product, is entirely neglected. 
It is, in fact, in Lapland alone that the Rein-deer is 
properly appreciated, and cultivated with a due regard 
to its peculiar qualifications. To it the Laplander owes 
whatever he possesses of domestic comfort or of Euro- 
pean civilization. It furnishes him with food and 
raiment ; forms the standard of his rank and consi- 
deration among his countrymen ; and affords the means 
of communication with his neighbours. In a country 
where neither the cow nor the horse could live through 
the winter, it supplies the place of both ; and at seasons 
when the roads, if any existed, would be impassable to 
man, it whirls him with equal safety and rapidity along 
the frozen surface of the snow. It is true that in order 
to obtain these advantages the Laplander is compelled 
to adapt himself to the manners of his herd, to follow 
