THE REINDEER AND ITS PURSUIT 
one and has much increased of late years, being materially protected 
by its isolation and the fact that few sportsmen or natives ever visit the 
place. Now we hear that a nitrogen company is to harness the magnificent 
waterfall of Dettifoss and make use of its power, and this means that a 
small village will spring up within a few miles of the reindeer habitat. It is 
certain that these animals will all be killed unless the Icelandic Govern- 
ment take the matter in hand at once and protect them. These Icelandic 
reindeer are in every way similar to the typical race, with the exception 
that they grow on an average much finer heads. 
From accounts given by Englishmen who have shot reindeer in Spitz - 
bergen the sport, if it may be so called, is not of such a character as to 
tempt anyone to go there for that purpose. Steamers leave Trondhjem 
every August for bear and reindeer hunting round and on Spitzbergen, and 
a few travellers have an opportunity of killing these animals on the hill 
slopes of the west side of the island near Advent Bay. The deer are, how- 
ever, when found, so tame that the shooting cannot be called sport but 
merely meat or specimen hunting. The late Lord David Kennedy, who 
killed many reindeer in Spitzbergen, told me that the first four bucks he 
found were not alarmed at the sound of a rifle, and he shot one after the other 
without either moving from the spot or hiding himself, and subsequently 
he always found the animal to be without fear. The confined area of their 
range and severe climatic conditions would account for this. 
In spite of constant harassing in the autumn by the crews of Norwegian 
ships the Spitzbergen reindeer are still numerous, and this may be ac- 
counted for by a possible immigration across the ice from the north-east, 
where man cannot hunt them. It is only in the autumn that they descend to 
the west coast -line to feed on the seaweed. The reindeer on Kolguev are 
tame, but a good many wild ones exist on Franz Josef -land and other 
islands of the Arctic Sea, whilst there is a large herd in the forest of the 
Government of Kazan, where they are preserved and shot by the Czar of 
Russia and his friends in winter battues. 
The art of hunting the reindeer in the high fjelds of Norway is one of the 
finest sports in Europe, ensuring as it does all the best qualities of healthy 
manhood. No man can kill wild reindeer unless he is quite sound in wind 
and limb, for the walking is often very arduous, combining long distances 
with a certain degree of mountaineering, and the living rough and hard, 
as luxuries cannot easily be transported to the stone huts or saeters where 
the hunter must make his home. A shot at a good buck occurs about once 
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