44 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
the beginning of the thirteenth century it became extinct. In 
Germany, also, it seems to have retreated, and taken refuge in 
Pomerania and Denmark in the middle ages. In the middle of 
the seventeenth century it could no longer live in Denmark,^ 
and at the present day it has found uncertain resting places in 
the north of European Eussia and the mountains of Scandinavia, 
where it is daily becoming rarer, and daily seeking refuge from 
the hunter by a retreat northwards towards the shores of the 
great northern sea, and westwards towards the great Siberian 
tundras. 
Nor, indeed, can the reindeer be induced to live in the 
countries which were formerly their own. The Duke of Athol f 
attempted to reintroduce them into Scotland without success, 
and even an attempt made to naturalise them in Denmark, in 
the first half of the eighteenth century, failed.:|: In Cassel also. 
Dr. Zimmermann § writes, that they were kept in a park ; but in 
no case on record in any of these countries have they propagated 
their kind. Without exception, all have died barren. The 
reason, therefore, of their northern retreat cannot be the dread 
of the hunter, as has been suggested, for all possible pains were 
taken to preserve them. The red-deer, moreover, would not have 
thriven and multiplied in the countries which they deserted, 
for the flesh of the former is, if anything, better than the flesh 
of the latter, and the former is quite as easily captured as the 
latter. We must seek, therefore, a far dee'per cause. No one 
would dispute the intense cold of the Glacial, or the severe 
climate of Central and Western Europe in Post-glacial times, 
during which the reindeer was so abundant ; but many would be 
inclined to deny the gradual amelioration of our climate in the 
Pre-historic and Historic eras. That, however, the climate has 
changed since Csesar’s day is proved by the concurrent testimony 
of Buffon, Zimmermann, and Gibbon. || The German invaders 
of the Koman empire transported their numerous armies, their 
cavalry and heavy waggons, over the Rhine and Danube, over a 
vast and solid bridge of ice. On the banks of the Danube the 
wine, when brought to table, was frequently frozen. Thus we 
have clear historical proof that the climate of Germany, in the 
days of Ovid, Virgil, Herodian, and Diodorus Siculus, was much 
more severe than it is now. We therefore not only know that the 
reindeer existed in Germany in those times, but that the physical 
conditions also were, to a certain extent, of an arctic character. 
Coincident with the climatal change that has taken place since 
* Acta Hasnens, 1671. 
t British Animals, Flemming. 1828. 
X CEuvres de Reynard, tom. i. Paris 1750. 
§ Specimen Zool. Geograph. 4to., 1777, p. 283. 
|j Decline and Fall of Roman Empire, cap. ix. 
