THE REINDEER AND ITS PURSUIT 
theirs at the end of October. Sir Richard Owen’s theory of the “ snow- 
plough ” is, therefore, quite ridiculous. I have never seen a reindeer buck 
touch the snow with his horns. He always scrapes the snow away with his 
feet, and is often pushed out of the way, after having made a nice feeding 
hole, by some selfish female possessed of horns. Old writers on the subject 
of reindeer made all sorts of ridiculous suggestions as to the differences of 
the woodland and the Barren -land varieties of reindeer, generally empha- 
sizing the fact that the “ Barren ground ” races, in which they included the 
typical race, were migratory, and the “woodland” not so. A close study of 
the animal proves that all races of reindeer are very similar in their habits 
and that all are migratory according to the scarcity or abundance of their 
favourite diet. When food becomes scarce in any district reindeer migrate 
sometimes only fifty or sixty miles and sometimes hundreds of miles, and 
the same applies to Norway, the Lena Delta , Newfoundland and North Ameri - 
ca. These periodical migrations are generally undertaken in late or early 
autumn, and are entirely governed by the snowfall and the temperatures. 
In Norway migrations of reindeer during the days of their abundance 
were a common feature and even to-day proceed regularly on a small 
scale in local areas. Dr Heiberg informs me that a migration commences 
every season amongst the Saetersdal- Stavanger herds in late August, com- 
mencing in the south-west and moving north-east. The herds form a com- 
plete circle of their country, embracing 200 to 300 square miles, and by 
the end of September, after going as far asTelemarken, work back to their 
original position near the coast. 
A cold north wind with snow will cause all the reindeer on the north 
side of the mountains to move 100 miles to the south, and take refuge 
in the sheltered valleys on the south side of the highest mountains, so that 
your stalking ground which may have been full of deer in August may be 
devoid of them in September. Sometimes reindeer are caught in a “ glit- 
ter,” and become so weak that they are unable to migrate, and die in hun- 
dreds. This occurred in the high tops of Laerdal-Hallingdal in 1888, and 
hundreds perished, whilst I could give many other examples of a similar 
kind that have occurred in Norway, the Hudson Bay Islands and in New- 
foundland. A “ glitter ” is caused by heavy rain falling on the top of frozen 
snow and then a frost in succession. The ground then becomes so hard 
that the deer cannot break through the crust and wander about in misery 
till they perish. 
In the rutting season in Norway the herds are in a constant state of turmoil 
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