CONCERNING LAPLAND. 
1 93 
from their very birth are nimble, and are foon able to run with 
equal fpeed and keep up with her dams. Every hind knows her 
own fawn, let the herd be ever fo numerous. 
If the hind be of an afh colour, her fawm at its birth is red, with 
a (tripe down the back, and is then called mieejje. This colour 
grows darker, the red hairs falling off" towards autumn, when it is 
called zhiaermak. Some rein-deer, when full grown, are white 
with afh coloured fpots : the fawns of a white mother are always 
white. 
The hinds called by the Norwegians Jlmler, exceed the bucks in 
fize ; many of them have fine branching horns, and fome few none 
at all: the horns grow again as foon as died ; the new ones ap¬ 
pear at firft like two foft dwellings on the head, of a blackifh co¬ 
lour ; the fkin as they fhoot forth changes to an afh colour, and 
peels oft' when the horns are near dropping. The horns are thick 
at the bottom, but thinner as they fpread out, with points like 
fingers ; and they are fo branching, that when thefe animals fight 
they are often fattened by their antlers, and not able to extricate 
themfelves without the affiftance of man. Their haunches are 
the fatteft parts ; and thefe are very much fo before the rutting 
l'eafon. 
The rein-deer is much infefted in the fummer by a fly which 
creeps up its nottrils, and is on that account called by Linnaeus 
cejlrus nafalis : the Laplander’s name for it is the trompe. The 
rein-deer is likewife fubjedl to a diftemper, which is contagious, 
and fo fatal, that it often proves deftruttive to numerous herds: 
Vol. II. C c this 
