THE REINDEER
(Rangifer tarandus)
THE reindeer, the ren of the Swedes, is by far the most valuable member of the deer tribe, as it furnishes the Laps and many of the tribes of northern Asia not only with food, raiment, and leather, but likewise serves as a beast of draught and burden to transport them and their food across the inhospitable regions which form their home. Reindeer are likewise in all probability the most numerous in individuals of any of theCervidæ, occurring in vast herds on the highfjellsof Scandinavia, while in many parts of North America, where they are known as caribou, they are met with in countless thousands, if not indeed in millions.
But it is not only in these two respects that reindeer are worthy of special notice, for they are the only members of the deer tribe in which antlers are carried by both sexes, those of the females being, however, considerably smaller than those of the males; while they are further remarkable for the early period of life at which these appendages make their first appearance. Then, again, the antlers, as is well shown in the illustration, are quite unlike those of any other deer; generally having the two pairs of front tines more or less branched and unsymmetrical, while the main beam sweeps backwards and then forwards in a bold curve, frequently giving off a single back-tine at the middle of the arch, and always carrying a number of tines on the hind edge of the upper portion.
Reindeer have a circumpolar distribution, except that they are naturally absent from Alaska; and in the former respect therefore agree with elk, although their range extends much farther north, and is proportionately curtailed in the south.
In all respects these deer are admirably adapted to a climate of intense severity and a life for months at a time amid snow and ice. Their coats are of great thickness and density, the hairs growing so close together as to produce a structure recalling much elongated velvet-pile. In the stags the throat is further protected by a fringe or ruff of long hair; and in both sexes the main pair of hoofs is very large and deeply cleft, so as to afford as big a surface as possible to prevent sinking deeply in the snow, while further support is afforded by the unusually large size of the small supplemental pair of hoofs. With these powerful hoofs, reindeer in winter scrape away the snow to uncover the reindeer-moss (Cladonia rangiferina), which at this season forms their main or only food-supply. In summer, however, they eat grass and herbage, as well as the buds and young shoots of dwarf birch.
rein
The typical representative of the species is the Scandinavian reindeer, the one represented in the illustration, which occurs in both the wild and the domesticated condition. It is a comparatively small animal, with relatively short limbs, and the antlers rounded, and not displaying, as a rule, any very excessive development in the width of one of the lower pair of front tines. In Siberia other and larger, but still imperfectly known, races occur; while in Arctic America the species is represented by two very distinct types, more or less connected by a number of intermediate races.
The recently described Finnish race of the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus fennicus), now nearly extinct, is a larger animal than its Swedish representative.
Of the two chief American types, the most northern is the so-called Barren-ground reindeer or caribou (R. t. arcticus), in which the antlers are rounded and of great length, with the basal front tines far removed from those of the terminal extremity; while the woodland reindeer (R. t. caribu), on the other hand, has the antlers short, flattened, and with the tines crowded together, very large, and often much branched. In some of these American reindeer one of the lower pair of front tines often attains an enormous width, or depth, and is much branched.
There is likewise great racial variation in the matter of colour among American reindeer, the lightest being the NewfoundlandR. t. novæ-terræ, while the darkest isR. t. osborniof the Cascade Mountains, in which the greater part of the body is chocolate, or even blackish brown.
Reindeer, alike in the Old World and in America, are accustomed to undertake long seasonal migrations in search of food, travelling southwards in autumn, and returning to the northern part of their range in summer. Moreover, in many districts they are compelled to retire in summer from the open plains to the shelter of mountain forests on account of the attacks of various insects, more especially the reindeer-fly. Here it may be mentioned that the latter insect is found in certain continental localities far south of the present range of the reindeer, where it has doubtless existed since the time when that animal had a wider distribution. In their migrations, several thousands of reindeer frequently collect in herds of from two hundred to three hundred head, which travel one after another in long lines, each led, it is reported, by an old cow, and the whole forming a very forest of antlers. They swim the widest rivers with ease.