584 
THE SAVAGE WORLD 
The Reindeer ( Rctngifer tarandus ) is about the size of an English stag, 
but less graceful and symmetrical. The horns are long, slender and round, 
re-curved, branched with palmated summits. Its color is brown above and white 
beneath, although the upper parts grow gray with increasing age. The lower 
part of the neck is drooping, the hoofs large, long and black, and accompanied 
by secondary hoofs on the hind feet. Julius Csesar mentions meeting with the 
reindeer in the Hyrcanian forests, but its present habitat is the Arctic polar 
belt. Its skin makes the warmest of clothing, and its flesh and tongue very 
delicious food. Its fat is used in making “pemmican,” by pouring one-third 
melted fat over two-thirds pounded meat. The oestrus fly is a great and constant 
REINDEER SEEIGH. 
annoyance to the reindeer , because of its preference for the flesh of the 
reindeer as a depository for its eggs. 
The reindeer continues to play too important a part in human life, not at 
once to suggest his appearance to the reader. In winter it is dressed in long, 
grayish-brown fur, which changes to white on the abdomen, neck, hindquarters 
and end of nose. The Laplanders own thousands which have been domesti¬ 
cated, and life without the reindeer would be unlivable. It will draw a load 
of from two hundred to three hundred pounds, at the rate of nine miles an 
hour, and can keep this up for twelve hours a day, as a regular exercise. It 
is able to sustain life upon a lichen found under the snow, so that it costs 
nothing for its support. In Kamtchatka the reindeer is used as a saddle- 
horse besides being put to many other useful services. 
