III.] 
MARKED REINDEER. 
135 
It still, however, occurs on Ice Fjord in very great numbers, 
which, were the animal protected, would speedily increase. 
That so devastating a pursuit as that which goes on year after 
year on Spitzbergen can be carried on without the animal being 
extirpated, has even given rise to the hypothesis of an immi¬ 
gration from Novaya Zemlya. But since I have become better 
acquainted with the occurrence of the reindeer in the latter 
place, this mode of explanation does not appear to me to be 
correct. If, therefore, as several circumstances in fact indicate, 
an immigration of reindeer to Spitzbergen does take place, it 
must be from some still unknown Polar land situated to the 
north-north-east. In the opinion of some of the walrus-hunters 
there are indications that this unknown land is inhabited, for 
it has repeatedly been stated that marked reindeer have been 
taken on Spitzbergen. The first statement on this point is to 
be found in Wit sen {^Noort ooster gedeelte van Asia en Europa, 
1705, ii. page 904), where the reins are said to have been 
marked on the horns and the ears ; and I have myself heard 
hunters, who in Norway were well acquainted with the care of 
reindeer, state positively that the ears of some of the Spitz¬ 
bergen reindeer they shot were clipped—probably, however, 
the whole has originated from the ears having been marked 
by frost. That no immigration to Spitzbergen of reindeer from 
Novaya Zemlya takes place, is shown besides by the fact that 
the Spitzbergen reindeer appears to belong to a race differing 
from the Novaya Zemlya reindeer, and distinguished by its 
smaller size, shorter head and legs, and plumper and fatter body. 
years in succession somewhere on the coast of Stans Foreland (Maloy 
Broun), and who, during this long time, were dependent for their food on 
what they could procure by hunting without the use of fire-arms (they had 
when they landed powder and ball for only twelve shots), when the three 
survivors were found and taken home in 1749, had killed two hundred and 
fifty reindeer (P. L. le Roy, Relation des Aoentures arrivees d quatre 
matelots Russes jettes par une teinpHe pres de VIsle deserte d’ OslSpitzbergen, 
sur laquelle ils ont passe six ans et trois mois, 1766). 
