The stags cast their antlers, and the does drop their young, in May or June, about the time of the first thaw. The males and females are then very seldom found together; the female deer collecting in small herds with their young; the little creatures, which seem all eyes, ears, and legs, taking alarm at any unaccustomed sound or the slightest appearance of danger. The summer vegetation fattens the bucks and does amazingly, and the fawns thrive and develop; all three, says Osborn, having a comparative holiday, and getting into condition to face the trials of the coming winter; while the wolf and the fox, their sworn enemies, are pursuing the infant seals and bears, or attending to their own little domestic duties. But when the autumn frost sets in, and hardens the ground, and the dense snow once more overspreads the dreary northern landscape, the wolves resume their attacks on the unfortunate deer.
For warmth or protection, and following the natural instincts of gregarious animals, they now begin to collect together in large herds of bucks, does, and fawns, numbering as many as sixty and seventy head. The stags seem to undertake the discipline of these large companies, as well as to be responsible for their safety.
Captain Mecham relates that, in October 1852, when crossing that part of Melville Island which intervenes between Liddon Gulf and Winter Harbour, he fell in with as many as three hundred head of deer; and he adds that reindeer were always in sight, in herds varying from ten to sixty in number. One of these herds, containing twenty males, he tried to stalk up to on the 7th of October, but failed in getting a shot at them; for although the does, with the inherent weakness of their sex, showed an excessive curiosity, and made one or two efforts to desert the herd and examine the stranger, the stags would in nowise tolerate such conduct, but chastised them smartly with their antlers, and kept the herd together and in motion by running rapidly round and round, uttering at the same time a strange noise which seemed to alarm the herd, and keep it flying from the suspected danger.
The coat of the reindeer in summer-time is remarkably thin, and adapted admirably in colour to that of the snow-denuded soil; but as winter approaches, it thickens, and gradually resumes its snowy whiteness. Though not, strictly speaking, a fur, it forms an admirable non-conducting substance.
As winter, “ruler of the inverted year,” extends his sway over the Polar World, and food grows scarce and indifferent, and has to be sought over larger areas, the herds break up into companies of ten or twenty animals; the lichens, the reindeer moss already described (Cetraria Islandica), and the sprouts of the creeping willow forming their principal food.
On this branch of our subject Admiral Sherard Osborn makes two suggestive remarks.
Arctic vegetation, he observes, has no time in the autumn to wither or decay—while in full bloom, and before the juices have time to return into the parent root or be otherwise dissipated, the “magic hand of the frost king” strikes them; and thus the wisdom of the Creator has provided for the nourishment of his creatures a fresh and warmth-creating food, lying hid under a mantle of snow, which the instinct of those Arctic animals teaches them to remove and reach the stores so beneficently preserved beneath.
Moreover, most herbivorous animals have a slow system of digestion, even in a domestic state; as, for instance, our cattle and sheep. This appears to be more conspicuously the case in the musk-ox, the reindeer, and the Arctic hare, and is of great utility in lands where vegetation is scanty and wide-spread, and the weather occasionally so severe as to compel these creatures, for two or three days at a time, to think only of their safety by seeking shelter from the snow-storms in deep ravines or under lofty cliffs. It appears in their case as if Nature extracted from their food a greater quantity of nourishment than she does from that of animals in more southern latitudes; or possibly, the food, by the mere act of remaining in the stomach or intestines, serves to check the cravings of appetite, though no further nutriment should be extracted.
Most of the musk-oxen and deer shot in Captain M’Clintock’s expedition, and especially the musk-oxen, had their entrails distended with food apparently quite digested, while the surrounding country in many cases was absolutely barren and lifeless,—inducing the conclusion that these creatures had been a long time collecting their supplies, as also that it had been a long time swallowed, and necessitated the full activity of the vital principle to prevent the food from proving a source of disease. This, indeed, was clearly proved in the case of the musk-oxen, which, if shot, and left twelve hours without being disembowelled, grew tainted throughout with a strong musky odour, rendering the flesh uneatable.
It may also be stated, as an illustration of the facility with which the reindeer can winter in high latitudes, that in Lapland, where they are used as beasts of draught, a daily supply of four pounds of lichen (Cenomyce rangiferina) is considered ample for a working animal; and on this dietary a reindeer will be in sufficiently good condition to go without food occasionally for two or three days, and yet, to all appearance, not to be distressed.