We come now to examine the forms of Animal Life which exist under the conditions of climate and vegetation we have been describing.
Foremost we must place the animal which, in the Arctic World, occupies much the same position as the camel in the Tropical,—the reindeer (Cervus turandus).
In size the reindeer resembles the English stag, but his form is less graceful and more compressed. He stands about four feet six inches in height. Long, slender, branching horns embellish his head. The upper part of his body is of a brown colour, the under part is white; but as the animal advances in years his entire coat changes to a grayish-white, and, in not a few cases, is pure white. The nether part of the neck, or dewlap, droops like a pendent beard. The hoofs are large, long, and black; and so are the secondary hoofs on the hind feet. The latter, when the animal is running, make by their collision a curious clattering sound, which may be heard at a considerable distance.
The reindeer anciently invaded Europe and Asia to a comparatively low latitude; and Julius Cæsar includes it among the animals of the great Hercynian forest. Even in our own time large herds traverse the wooded heights of the southern prolongation of the Ouralian range. Between the Volga and the Don they descend to the 46th parallel; and they extend their wanderings as far as the very foot of the Caucasus, on the banks of the Kouma. Still, the proper habitat of the reindeer is that region of ice and snow bounded by the Arctic Circle,—or, more exactly, by the isothermal line of 0° C.
Both the wild and the tame species change their feeding-grounds with the seasons. In winter they come down into the plains and valleys; in summer they retire to the mountains, where the wild herds gain the most elevated terraces, in order to escape the pertinacious attacks of their insect-enemies. It is a fact worthy of note that every species of animal is infested by a parasitical insect. The œstre so terrifies the reindeer that the mere appearance of one in the air will infuriate a troop of a thousand animals. In the moulting season these insects deposit their eggs in the skin of the unfortunate animal, and there the larvæ lodge and multiply ad infinitum, incessantly renewing centres of suppuration.
To the natives of North America the reindeer is invaluable. There is hardly a part of the animal not made available for some useful purpose. Clothing made of its skin is, according to Sir J. Richardson, so impervious to cold, that, with the addition of a coverlet made of the same material, any one so protected may bivouac on the snow with safety in the most intense cold of the Arctic night. The venison, when in high condition, has several inches of fat on the haunches, and is said to equal that of the fallow-deer in our English parks; the tongue, and a portion of the tripe, are reckoned most delicious morsels. Pemmican is made by pouring one-third part of fat over two-third parts of the pounded meat, and mixing fat and meat thoroughly together. The Eskimos and Greenlanders consider the stomach, or paunch, with its contents, a special delicacy; and Captain Sir James Ross says that the contents form the only vegetable food ever tasted by the natives of Boothia. For the reindeer is a herbivorous animal, and feeds upon the mosses and grasses.
WILD REINDEER.
The reindeer is by no means a graceful animal; its joints are large, and powerful in proportion to its size; the divided hoofs are very large, and as the animal is compelled to lift its feet high when going over the snow, its gallop has none of that beautiful elastic spring which characterizes the deer of our own islands, though its pace is “telling,” and soon carries it ahead of everything but the long-winded, long-legged wolf.