THE FOEHEH EANGE OF THE EEINDEEE IN EUEOPE. 
43 
lands of Scotland were so utterly unknown to the English of 
the middle ages, that even so late as the time of William III. they 
were looked upon very much as we now look upon the extreme 
north of Lapland. In this way the absence of any historical 
notice of the animal may be accounted for. The inclement hills 
of Caithness lie in the same parallel of latitude as the south of 
Norway and Sweden, in which the animal was living at the 
time. Eeindeer moss is very abundant for the animal to eat, 
and the only condition of life which is wanting to make that 
country still habitable by it is a greater severity of cold. I feel 
disposed, therefore, to admit the fact that the reindeer lived in 
Caithness at the time that Henry II. occupied the throne of Eng- 
land and Alexander Neckam was writing his Natural History. 
There is also another point which is well worthy of notice. The 
animal is mentioned in the Saga along wdth “ the red-deer.” At 
the present day they occupy different zoological provinces, so 
that the fact of their association in Caithness would show that 
in the twelfth century the red-deer had already appropriated the 
pastures of the reindeer, which could not retreat further north 
on account of the sea. Hence the association of these animals 
in the same area proves that the latter was verging towards 
extinction. The exact date of the disappearance of the reindeer 
from North Grermany and the district to the south of the Baltic 
is not known ; according to Bartholinus, it had deserted Den- 
mark before the year 1671. From Linnaeus’ time down to the 
present day, even in Sweden and Norway, it has been retreating 
further and further north. 
We have thus traced the range of the animal in Post-glacial 
and Pre-historic times, down to the present day. During the 
Post-glacial period it dwelt, as we have seen, throughout Europe 
north of a line passing through the Alps and Pyrenees, in vast 
herds, associated with the cave hyaena and tichorhine rhinoceros. 
During the Eeindeer epoch it lived also in vast herds in France 
and Belgium. In Pre-historic times it is found sparingly in 
Britain, Switzerland, and abundantly in the north of Grermany. 
When Caesar wrote his Commentaries the animal had left Graul 
and taken shelter in the great Hercynian forest. Before his 
landing in Britain it had most likely departed from the whole 
of the island which subsequently formed the province of 
Britannia. If this did not take place before the Stone or Bronze 
age in Britain the animal must have been very rare, for while 
the other objects of the chase are represented by vast quantities 
of bones in the tumuli and villages, not the least trace of it has 
yet been found. It most probably, therefore, had taken refuge 
in the inclement hills of Caithness before the commencement of 
history in Britain. There it lingered on, struggling for life 
with the red-deer until, towards the end of the twelfth or 
