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 Newfoundland R. t. novæ-terræ, while the darkest is R. t. osborni of 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.
THE DEFASSA WATERBUCK
(Cobus defassa)
TO one of the handsomest of the larger South African antelopes the old Dutch colonists gave the name of wasserbok, the equivalent of the English waterbuck, on account of its partiality for the neighbourhood of water, although it has subsequently been discovered that several more or less nearly allied species are equally aquatic in their habits. This typical waterbuck, which is about the size of an average mule, and is known to naturalists by the name of Cobus ellipsiprymnus, is characterised by the iron-grey colour of the long coarse hair of the head and body, and the presence of a large elliptical white ring (whence the specific name ellipsiprymnus) on the buttocks. The tail is comparatively long, and terminates in a blackish tuft, while the lower portions of the legs are likewise blackish. The ears are large and rounded; and the bucks carry a handsome pair of sublyrate, light brown horns, ringed from the base nearly to the tip.
At first this was the only waterbuck known, but as the country was gradually opened up a second species was discovered, whose range is now known to extend from Angola and German East Africa to Abyssinia, Senegambia, and Nigeria. This is the defassa or sing-sing waterbuck—for it has different native names in different parts of its range—the Cobus defassa of naturalists, and the subject of the accompanying coloured Plate. From the true or typical waterbuck it is distinguished by the redder (or in the case of one race blacker) colour of the coat, and the substitution of a comparatively small white patch for the large elliptical ring on the rump. There are several local races of this species, such as the typical defassa of Abyssinia and the sing-sing of West Africa, differing to a certain extent in colour; the most marked of these being the Angolan C. defassa penricei, which is blackish grey.
Waterbuck are very generally found in the neighbourhood of rivers and lakes, where they feed amid the swamps of reeds and papyrus, but are by no means restricted to such situations, and may indeed be met with in dry and rocky localities. Sometimes, like hartebeests, they will climb the white-ant hills in order to obtain a good view of their surroundings and see whether all is safe.