THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
escapes from the tame herds, whilst it is a somewhat curious fact that 
reindeer do not, as a rule, grow such fine horns under domestication as 
they do in a wild state. 
Passing east from Finmark we find the same type of reindeer inhabiting 
Central Russian and Swedish Lapland, and this type varies but little 
throughout North Russia to the east of Archangel and the islands of the 
White Sea, though the bodies of these animals are usually somewhat 
larger than the true typical race. In the Kola peninsula and the adjacent 
coasts and up the Pasvig river there is a specialized race which has been 
named Rangifer tarandus kolaensis , and is certainly the finest reindeer 
in Europe or Asia. It is a very large animal, comparing favourably both in 
body and horn with the caribou of N.W. America. These reindeer, now all 
domesticated by the Russian Lapps, are doubtless the descendants of a 
wild and giant race which at one time roamed throughout North Russian 
Lapland. Two heads brought by the late Professor Collett from the Pasvig 
River in 1886 and now in the Natural History Museum at Christiania, are 
by far the finest European reindeer heads I have seen and are quite equal 
to the best American specimens. In Spitzbergen there is a dwarf race known 
as Rangifer tarandus Spitsbergensis (Andersen) whose nasal bones differ 
slightly from the typical race. The horns are quite small but of the usual 
reindeer type. 
At the beginning of the nineteenth century reindeer were very abundant 
throughout Norway, from Saetersdal to Finmark, in all the ranges of 
mountains to the west of the backbone separating Norway from Sweden. 
At that time the peasants were badly armed and few possessed guns of 
any power, so that the annual increase more than compensated for the 
annual losses. Lloyd, in his “ Scandinavian Adventures,” bears testimony 
that they were as abundant as the blesbok in South Africa, and I myself 
have met old reindeer hunters who have told me that forty years ago they 
have seen as many as 5,000 to 6,000 within view at once, during the rutting 
season in the high valleys between Laerdal and Hallingdal. The Express 
rifles introduced between 1860 and 1889 made some difference in the 
numbers of the animals; but the great change and slaughter commenced 
about the year 1890 with the advent of the small-bore Krag -Jorgensen 
rifle and the introduction of herds of tame reindeer into the main ranges 
where the wild herds existed. In twenty years from that date nearly the 
whole of the Norwegian mountains have been depleted of wild reindeer, 
and now only a scattered remnant exist in the mountains of the Dovrefjeld, 
292 
