THE REINDEER AND ITS PURSUIT 
the American or Asiatic races, in which the dark mark is very faint or alto- 
gether absent; legs very black with pronounced white ring above the 
hoofs; heads black, becoming grey on the sides, white round the eyes 
and on the front of the lower jaw. Neck grey or white; beard, white, 
or grey; rest of the body, grey or brownish-grey; belly, white or grey; 
tail, white and black on the upper surface. The horns are usually about 
45 to 52 inches long, with points varying from fifteen to fifty. I possess a 
head from Har danger with forty -nine points, and have seen two heads 
of 60 and 61 inches long. Horns over 56 inches are however very rare. 
Any naturalist who makes a close study of the local races of deer must 
be struck by the way in which they vary even in ranges only forty or fifty 
miles apart. It is not possible to judge reindeer by looking at specimens 
in the British Museum, where only a few from widely different areas exist. 
In visiting Saetersdal, Hardanger, Laerdal, Jotunheim, and Namdalen, 
where hundreds of pairs of horns can be seen, I have been much impressed 
by the fact that each local race carries its own individual characteristics. 
Those from Hardanger and Saetersdal might be totally different races, so 
diverse are their types of antlers; whilst a comprehensive view of a large 
number of pairs of horns from the aforementioned mountains will con- 
vince the observer that reindeer change the forms of their horn points 
in accordance with feeding and environment as much as red deer do in 
the various parts of Europe. 
The Saetersdal wild herds which now inhabit an area bounded by 
Saetersdal on the south, Stavanger on the north, Telemarken on the east 
and the sea on the west, are always long and thin and seldom carry more 
than eighteen or twenty points and usually fifteen or sixteen; 59 inches 
is the longest head (killed there by Mr Scott on Lysheien). In Hardanger 
Vidden, where the wild reindeer are much hunted and now getting scarce, 
the type is short, seldom more than 46 inches, but furnished with a large 
number of points. Many heads of over forty points, mostly killed years 
ago, are in existence. In Namdalen and Jotunheim the type is long, thin 
and often with good bays and tops somewhat palmated; whilst in Laerdal 
and Hallingdal horns are very long, with straggling tops and few points. 
From Laerdal I have seen two heads 60 inches long. 
When we go north to Finmark and east to Sweden and Central Lapland 
we find the reindeer as a rule a smaller and less well -antlered animal than 
in Central and Southern Norway, but this we should expect, as the races 
are here practically all under domestication, the wild ones being only 
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