three or four hundred pounds. The horns, although very stout in proportion to their length, are yet decidedly shorter.

As already remarked, the reindeer is still common in the wilderness forming the northern parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Lieutenant Thom, of the topographical corps, while retracing and surveying part of the Maine boundary line last summer, saw tracks of many individuals while in the country between Lake Memphramagog and Lake They abound in Maine and New Brunswick. Of a size much greater than that of the Barren Ground caribou. The flesh, as an article of food, is far inferior. The rut takes place in October, and the young are produced in June.

The remarks in regard to domestication apply as well to this species. as to the one last mentioned; while the value, as a beast of burden, or draught, would probably be much greater, on account of the superior size. There seems to be little doubt that domestication would enable the species to exist further at the north, and even in the Barren Grounds themselves. Indeed, the European reindeer might itself be imported and propagated, and thus the loss of time consequent upon the attempt of domesticating a wild species be avoided. Nothing would be easier than to bring over from Norway or Sweden a drove of reindeer, and stocking one or more of the forts in Hudson's Bay, or other parts of British America.

TARANDUS FURCIFER.

The European Reindeer.

The Old World reindeer (Tarandus furcifer) is found throughout the arctic regions. It abounds in Kamschatka, Siberia, Northern Russia, Sweden, and Norway; but especially in Finmark and Lapland. In Europe its southern limit is the Baltic; in Asia it extends along the Ural to the Caucasus. Its existence in Iceland has been denied; and, indeed, its introduction there seems to date back less than one hundred years. At that time, sixteen animals were imported from Norway, of which only three landed alive. These were turned loose in the mountains, and have multiplied to a very great degree. In some sections of the island they are found in herds of many hundreds. Little or no attempt at their domestication has been made by the inhabitants, as the cow and sheep thrive extremely well, rendering any substitute unnecessary. In Finmark and Lapland, however, where the reindeer is still found wild, the natives use every art in their power to capture and bring them to a state of domestication-an animal which constitutes their sole wealth, and, indeed, the means of their existence, and without which their country would be in reality, as to the stranger it appears, an uninhabitable desert.

The food of the reindeer varies with the season and with the climate. Lapland, says Hoffberg, in the memoir above quoted, is divided into two tracts, called the Alpine and Woodland country. Those immense mountains, called in Sweden Fjellen, divide that country from Norway, extending towards the White Sea as far as Russia, and are frequently more than twelve miles in breadth. The other, called the woodland division, lies to the east of this, and differs from the neighboring provinces of Norway by its soil, which is exceedingly strong and barren, being covered with one continued tract of wood, of old pine trees. This tract

has a very singular appearance. The trees above are covered over with great quantities of a black hanging lichen, growing in filaments resembling locks of hair; while the ground beneath appears like snow, being totally covered with white lichens. Between this wood and the Alps lies a region called the Woodland, or Desert Lapmark, of thirty or forty miles in width, of the most savage and horrid appearance, consisting of scattered uncultivated woods, and continued plains of dry, barren sands, mixed with vast lakes and mountains. When the mosses on part of this desert tract have been burnt, either by lightning or any accidental fire, the barren soil immediately produces the white lichen, which covers the lower parts of the Alps. The reindeer, in summer, seek their highest • parts, and there dwell amidst their storms and snows, not to fly the heat of the lower regions, but to avoid the gnat and gad-fly. In winter these intensely cold mountains, whose tops reach high into the atmosphere, can no longer support them, and they are obliged to return to the desert. to subsist upon the lichens. Of these its principal food is the reindeer lichen. There are, says Hoffberg, two varieties of this: the first is called sylvestris, which is extremely common in the barren deserts of Lapland, and more particularly in its sandy and gravelly fields, which it whitens over like snow; its vast marshes, full of tussocks of turf, and its dry rocks are quite grown over by it. The second variety of this plant, which is less frequent than the former, is named the alpine. This grows to a greater height, with its branches matted together; it has this name, because, when those mountains are cleared of their wood, the whole surface of the earth is covered with it; yet it is seldom to be found on their tops. When the woods become too luxuriant, the Laplander sets fire to them, as experience has taught him that when the vegetables are thus destroyed, the lichen takes root in the barren soil and multiplies with facility; though it requires an interval of eight or ten years before it comes to a proper height. The Laplander esteems himself opulent who has extensive deserts producing this plant exuberantly; when it whitens over his fields, he is under no necessity of gathering in a crop of hay against the approach of winter, as the reindeer eats no dried vegetable, unless perhaps the river horsetail (Equisetum fluviatile). They root for this lichen under the snow like swine in a pasture; their fore-heels, nose, and feet are guarded with a hard skin closely attached to those parts, that they may not be hurt by the icy crest which covers the surface of the snow. very strong shoes which the Laplander esteems so much, are made of these parts of the hide. It sometimes happens (but very rarely) that the winter sets in with great rains, which the frost immediately congeals; the surface of the earth is covered with a coat of ice before the snow falls, and the lichen is entirely encrusted and buried in it; thus the reindeer is sometimes starved, and a famine attacks the Laplanders. In such an exigence they have no other resource but felling old fir-trees grown over with the hairy liverworts. These afford but a very inadequate supply even for a small herd; but the greater part of a large one, in such a case, are sure to perish with hunger. In the summer, when the reindeer ranges upon the Alps, a number of plants afford it food. Hagstrom states that it refuses to eat forty-six species, the names of which he gives.

The

That the lichen is not absolutely necessary as an article of food, is proved by the length of time during which a female of this species lived

at the Zoological Gardens, London. She survived ten winters, during which her food consisted almost entirely of hay. Her death, too, seemed to have been caused by inflammation of the lungs, rather than by any disorder of the digestive functions.

To the nations among which the reindeer is domesticated-the Laplanders especially-this animal is of the first necessity. According to Hoffberg, the mountaineer very often possesses three or four hundred, and even one thousand; the woodman rarely above one hundred. As a domestic animal, yielding a quantity of most delicious food, and occupying the place of the cow and the ox, it is invaluable; as a beast of draught, its importance is equally great, and its organization is adapted to the long wastes over which it forms the Laplander's sole means of communication: no less than that of the camel, it is framed for those deserts which, without the aid of these animals, would be impassable. The weight which the reindeer can draw is about 300 pounds, although 240 forms the usual load. Its speed, when thus employed, is almost incredible. In a race of three deer with light sledges, started by Pictet, who went to the north of Lapland in 1769 to observe the transit of Venus, the first performed. about 3,090 feet in two minutes, or nearly 19 English miles to the hour; the second made the same distance in three minutes, and the third in three minutes twenty-six seconds. Journeys of one hundred and fifty miles in nineteen hours are said to be not uncommon; and one animal is affirmed, in 1699, to have drawn an officer, with important despatches, eight hundred miles in forty-eight hours, falling dead at the end.

The tame reindeer, after shedding his coat, is of a brownish-yellow color, becoming gradually whiter, and ultimately almost entirely of this color. The space around the eye is entirely black. The longest hair is under the neck; the mouth, tail, and its vicinity white; and the feet, at the insertion of the hoof, are surrounded with a white ring. The hair of the body is so thick that the skin cannot be seen when the hair is parted; and when cast, it does not come away by the roots, but breaks at the base.

We have thus gone into much detail on the subject of the reindeer, believing it to be one of vital importance to the future progress of Arctic America. Of the capability for domestication of the American species, there can be no question-this, as a general rule, being shared by all gregarious mammalia. The wild European individuals can be caught and tamed with the greatest ease. In this connexion we may remark, that the reindeer forms one of the very few exceptions to the fact, that the domestic species seldom have relatives in a known wild state. This is the case with the horse, the ox, the sheep, the cat, the dog, and others; or, at any rate, in all these instances it is difficult to refer the species to wild

ones.

For domestic purposes, the horns of the various species of deer constitute serious impediments to general use. Fortunately, however, it is in our power to have them or not in domesticated species at pleasure, owing to the strong sympathy between the organs of generation and the organs which regulate the development of the horns. In all deer, except, perhaps, the reindeer, if the male be castrated when the horns are in a state of perfection, these will never be shed; if the operation be performed when the head is bare, they will never be reproduced; and if done when the secretion is going on, a stunted, ill formed, permanent horn is the

result. Castration will, as a general rule, be necessary for the full perfection of deer as food or animals for useful purposes. It is probable, too, that even without emasculation much may be done to regulate the horns; for instance, if the budding antlers be broken, or cut off, while in the velvet, it is highly probable that their reproduction will be materially affected. In the park of Col. Tuley, Clarke county, Virginia, we have seen an elk (Elaphus canadensis) which, when young, had one horn broken off. Every successive year this horn was reproduced as a single stub, without any branches whatever; while that on the opposite side presented a magnificent development of tines, giving to the animal a singularly unsystematic appearance. It is not quite certain, or at least authorities differ widely, as to whether the reindeer experiences the same changes in the horns on castration or not. The fact that the female has horns, as well as the male, may indicate some organic difference in he constitution of the genus Tarandus.

ALCES AMERICANA. Moose Deer.

This magnificent deer, the largest of its tribe, like the reindeer, is confined to the colder portions of the northern hemisphere, although between rather more southern parallels. They abound in the northern parts of Maine and New Hampshire, in Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Bruns wick, and Canada. A few are still found in New York, west of Lake Champlain, in the counties of Essex, Lewis, Hamilton, &c., especially in the neighborhood of the giant Adirondacks. This region, crowned by Tahawus or Mount Marcy, the most rugged, inaccessible, and magnificent mountain of the north, and but little inferior in height to Mount Washington, is even now in a condition almost as wild as when the white man first penetrated into its recesses. Here the traveller may listen to the shrill scream of the panther and the dismal howl of the wolf, or hunt the moose, the Virginia deer, the bear, and occasionally the elk. Sometimes the moose extends to the very shores of Lake Champlain, one individual having been killed a few years ago near the village of Westport, in Essex county, on this lake. The moose is also found in northern Vermont.

The southern limit of this species along the Atlantic coast is about 43°; but they are rarely found so low down in the central parts of America. They exist north of 49° across the continent, and are especially numerous in the northern Rocky mountains. In this range they extend to the Arctic sea, having been found at the mouth of Mackenzie's river, in lat. 69°. Farther east they do not exceed the parallel of 65°.

To the inhabitant of Maine, New Brunswick, and Lower Canada, the habits of the moose are well known, as it is a favorite article of the chase, constituting, as it does, the largest tenant of the American forest, its chosen abode. In the account of the moose in the invaluable work of Audubon and Bachman on the Quadrupeds of North America, we find an excellent article from the pen of Mr. Kendall, of Quebec, from which we make the following extract:

"The moose are abundant to the north of Quebec, and in the northern parts of the State of Maine. In the neighborhood of Moose river, and the lakes in its vicinity, they are very abundant. In the summer they are fond of frequenting lakes and rivers, not only to escape the attacks of insects which then molest them, but also to avoid injuring their antlers,

which, during their growth, are very soft, and exquisitively sensitive; and, besides, such situations afford them abundance of food.

"They there feed on the water plants or browse upon the trees fringing the shores. In the winter they retire to the dry mountain ridges, and generally 'yard,' as it is termed, on the side facing the south, where there are abundance of maple and other hard-wood trees upon which to feed, either by browsing on the tender twigs or peeling the bark from the stems of such as are only three or four inches in diameter. Their long penduJous upper lip is admirably adapted for grasping and pulling down the branches, which are held between the fore-legs until all the twigs are eaten. They peel off the bark by placing the hard pad on the roof of the mouth against the tree, and scraping upwards with their sharp, gouge-like teeth, completely denuding the tree to the height of seven or eight feet from the surface of the snow. They remain near the same spot as long as any food can be obtained, seldom breaking fresh snow, but keeping to the same tracks as long as possible.

"The antlers begin to sprout in April, and at first appear like two black knobs. They complete their growth in July, when the skin which covers them peels off, and leaves them perfectly white; exposure to the sun and air, however, soon renders them brown. When we consider the immense size to which some of them grow in such a short period of time, it seems almost incredible that two such enormous excrescences could be deposited from the circulating system alone. The daily growth is distinctly marked on the velvety covering by a light shade carried around thein. The first year the antlers are only about one inch long; the second year four or five inches, with perhaps the rudiment of a point; the third year about nine inches, when each divides into a fork, still round in form; the fourth year they become palmated, with a browantler and three or four points; the fifth season they have two crownantlers, and perhaps five points; the points increasing in size each year, and one or two points being added annually until the animal arrives at its greatest vigor; after which period they decrease in size, and the points are not so fully thrown out. The longest pair I ever met with had eighteen points, (others have them with twenty-three points;) they expanded five feet nine inches to the outside of the tips; the breadth of palm eleven inches without the points; circumference of shaft, clear of the burr, nine inches; weight, seventy pounds. The old and vigorous animals invariably shed them in December; some of four or five years old I have known to carry them as late as March; but this is not often the case.

"The rutting season commences in September. The male then become very furious, chasing away the younger and weaker ones. They run bellowing through the forest, and, when two of equal strength meet, have dreadful conflicts, and do not separate until one or both are severely injured. I bought a pair of antlers from a Penobscot Indian, with one of the brow-antlers and the adjoining prong broken short off. The parts were at least an inch and a half in diameter, and nearly as hard as ivory. At that season they are constantly on the move; swimming large lakes and crossing rivers in pursuit of the female. The female brings forth in May. The first time she produces one fawn, but afterwards two. It is supposed by hunters that these twins are always one a male and the other a female.