Reindeer in Newfoundland. 
St. John’s N. F., Feb. 4 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: An interesting experiment is now being 
tried in Newfoundland. On the extreme north¬ 
ern coast of the island, as well as on Labrador, 
the fishing villages and settlements are all 
situated in the harbors and creeks along the sea¬ 
shore. In the summer all inter-communication 
with the various villages is by water, so that the 
roads are very primitive. In winter, when the 
ground is covered with snow and the marshes 
and lakes are frozen, the people utilize dogs and 
“comaticks” to travel to and fro, and aflso for 
hauling fire wood, building material, etc. Those 
dogs are savage mongrels, closely allied to then- 
progenitor, the wolf; in fact, they are half wolf, 
as it is said that many of them during the sum¬ 
mer months have indiscriminate intercourse with 
the wolves that abound in these regions. The 
residents do not trouble much about these mon¬ 
grels in the summer, and they are generally kept 
in a state of semi-savage starvation. They feed 
on fish offal during the fishing season and oc¬ 
casionally band together and go a-hunting on 
their own account. On these occasions they 
will attack anything they come across, man or 
beast, and so fierce are their depredations that 
caribou, which are plentiful in Labrador, can 
only on rare occasions be found within twenty- 
five miles of the sea coast, as these mongrels 
have destroyed or driven them all inland. 
Last winter it was reported that a team of 
those dogs turned on the driver and devoured 
him and his wife and child who were accom¬ 
panying him to a distant settlement. It has been 
long recognized that these packs of savage dogs 
were great obstacles in the way of the progress 
of the people in these parts. It was impossible 
for them to keep cows, sheep, goats or even 
poultry. It remained for Dr. Grenfell, the 
philanthropic missionary of Labrador, assisted 
and encouraged by Sir Wm. McGregor, gover¬ 
nor of Newfoundland, to make the first practical 
effort to revolutionize the method of living of 
these poor people. 
Dr. Grenfell raised funds in Canada and the 
United States and purchased three hundred 
Lapland reindeer which he has distributed along 
the northern coast. These, besides being beasts 
of burden, will supply meat, milk and clothing 
to the residents of these parts. It is easier to 
feed them than dogs, as the moss necessary for 
their sustenance grows everywhere in abund¬ 
ance. The governor last season caused quan¬ 
tities of the different kinds of mosses to be 
gathered and sent to London to be tested. It 
was found that nearly every kind of the moss 
submitted was such as would supply good 
provender for the reindeer. The food supply 
being assured, Dr. Grenfell immediately entered 
into negotiations with parties in Norway and se¬ 
cured three hundred reindeer. 
They were shipped on the S. S. Anita of 735 
tons register, and left Bergen in Norway on 
Dec. 13 last. They were accompanied by four 
Lapland families, two boys and eight reindeer 
dogs. The weather coming across was very 
rough, only four days out of the whole trip 
being moderate. Gale succeeded gale, no dam¬ 
age however being sustained, and upon arrival 
on this side all the reindeer were in the best of 
condition. This was largely due to the fact that 
the ship was well ventilated; 
Food and water for the deer was in plenty, two 
hundred and forty tons of water, and seventy 
tons of moss being brought along for feeding 
purposes. Of this supply half the water and 
about thirty tons of moss were still left when 
the ship arrived in Newfoundland. She met the 
ice floe about thirty miles off St. Anthony, the 
port of destination, on New Year’s day. She 
had to run south to Seldom-Come-By, a port in 
Notre Dame Bay, where she reached on Jan. 
3. Here the captain got into telegraphic com¬ 
munication with Dr. Grenfell, who instructed 
him to try to get into Cremaillere, about two 
miles south of St. Anthony. She arrived safely 
on Jan. 7. y 
Shortly after arrival a gale sprang up and 
they feared for the safety of the ship, so it was 
decided to land the deer on the ice. The ani¬ 
mals were then hoisted overboard, but as soon 
as they were on the ice, owing, no doubt, to 
having been cooped up so long, they ran wild, 
with the result that several of them were 
drowned. The others were, however, success¬ 
fully herded by the Laplanders and dogs, and 
later driven to St. Anthony. The Flarmsworths, 
who have built one of the largest pulp plants 
in America at Grand Falls, have secured fifty 
of the reindeer for use at their works. 
All the appearances indicate that this experi¬ 
ment will be successful and will prove of incal¬ 
culable advantage to residents of northern New¬ 
foundland. 
Familiarity with reindeer and their uses will 
no doubt turn the attention of the people to our 
own caribou and lead to some effort being made 
to domesticate them. They abound on the island 
in thousands upon thousands and are easily 
captured and tamed. They are near akin to the 
Lapland reindeer, are cheaper and more easily 
to be procured. With very little effort the pres¬ 
ent stock of reindeer, if they become depleted, 
may be replaced or augmented by utilizing the 
caribou. When the inhabitants have partaken 
for a season or two of the advantages of hav¬ 
ing deer instead of mongrel dogs for domestic 
purpose, their initiative and ingenuity, of which 
there is no lack, will be directed toward the 
domestication of some of the countless herds 
of caribou that now range the interior of the 
island. 
Dr. Grenfell will deserve well of Newfound¬ 
land if this experiment succeeds, as he has put 
into practical effect a scheme which theorists 
have been talking about for many years. If he 
further succeeds in turning attention to the ease 
with which caribou can be procured and used 
for the same purposes he will in the future be 
reckoned as one of the greatest benefactors of 
Newfoundland. W. J. Carroll. 
Do Animals Reason? 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Of late this has been a frequently discussed 
question, many people coming forward with inci¬ 
dents of wild life which they interpret as show¬ 
ing that animals and birds do reason. On the 
other hand the scientists and psychologists are 
unanimous in saying that animals do not. Which 
side is correct? For my part I think that not 
only are the psychologists right, but that the 
trouble lies both in what we mean by the word 
reason, and in a weakness of the untrained ob¬ 
server to interject human motives, etc., into acts 
of the animals and birds. 
It is not easy to nail down the word “reason” 
so securely that everyone can apply it uniformly 
to all acts of animals. A little leeway in our defi¬ 
nition at this point may make a world of differ¬ 
ence later on—just the differnce we want. Some¬ 
thing happened here the other day which illus¬ 
trates very well this point: A barrel of molasses 
arrived at the monastery which some of the stu¬ 
dents were told to tap. Instead of up-ending 
the big barrel they bored into the head as it lay 
on the concrete floor. Had they stopped to 
think, i. e., reason, they would have foreseen the 
result; as it was the molasses squirted half way 
across the kitchen. Instantly the student who 
had done the boring clapped his hand over the 
hole, stopping the flow until a plug could be 
found. Now this act, this simple, obvious act 
of stopping the flow or waste of molasses with 
his hand was something quite beyond the mental 
capacity of any animal. Simple as it was it 
showed reason, showed a conception of quantity 
and waste, showed resource in the face of riew 
and unexpected conditions. Although animals 
show all the instincts—and more—that we show, 
have all our senses and more, have all the emo¬ 
tions of hate, fear, love, jealousy, etc., that we 
have, and can be trained to do wonderful and 
complicated things, yet not an animal in the 
world would have had reasoning powers enough 
to save its food supply by simply holding its paw 
on a hole through which it was escaping. Place 
a dozen intelligent dogs in a room with a slat 
floor and give them their supply of water once 
in two days in a tall, easily upset vessel. The 
chances are that they would upset and so lose 
their water every time, nor would they learn 
before they had perished of thirst. Place a 
piece of meat just out of reach of a hungry, 
chained-up dog. Place a hooked stick within his 
reach. Will the dog take the stick in his mouth 
and draw the meat to himself? Will he even 
turn around and haul the meat in reach of his 
mouth with his hind foot? No, simply because 
any of these acts involves a mental conception, 
an act of what the psychologists call reason. 
A friend told me a story of something a dog 
did which he said was an act of reason. I re¬ 
plied by telling him of a weed, called the red 
root, that grows on our farm and what it did 
this summer. This red root begins to grow as 
soon as it gets warm in June. Last year the 
drouth and the cultivator prevented its growing 
