The people of Lapland, Finland, and Siberia have for a long time domesticated reindeer, finding their flesh good to eat, and their hides, horns, and sinews valuable for making clothing and implements of various kinds. Their milk makes excellent cheese, which in those regions is an important article of food.
The Elk, or Moose
The elk, which is found in the same parts of the world as the reindeer, is a much larger animal. Indeed, it is the biggest of all living deer, a full-grown stag standing well over six feet in height at the withers, and sometimes weighing as much as twelve hundred pounds. It is not at all a graceful creature, for the neck is very short, and the head is held below the level of the shoulders, while the antlers are so enormously large that it hardly seems possible that the animal should be able to carry them.
One would think that when the elk was traveling through the forest these huge antlers would be constantly getting entangled among the branches of the trees. But the animal is able to throw them well back upon its shoulders, so that they do not really interfere with its progress in the least.
In America this animal is known as the moose, and is generally found in small parties, consisting of a buck, a doe, and their fawns of two seasons. During the summer they live near swamps or rivers, where there is plenty of rich, long grass. But as soon as winter comes on they retire to higher ground and spend the next few months in a small clearing in the midst of the thickest forest. These clearings are generally called moose-yards, and you might think, perhaps, that when a hunter had discovered one he would have no difficulty in shooting the animals. But they are so wary that it is almost impossible to approach them, either by day or by night, and many a hunter has followed them for weeks without obtaining a shot.
The Indians attract the moose within range by imitating the cry of the doe, which they do so cleverly that if a buck is within hearing he is sure to come up to the spot. Or they will rattle a moose's shoulder-bone against the bark of a tree so as to make a sound like the call of the buck, which any buck in the neighborhood is sure to take as a challenge to fight. For these animals are very quarrelsome creatures, and wage fierce battles with one another, sometimes using their antlers with such effect that both combatants die from their wounds.
The deer family is so large that we must content ourselves with briefly mentioning a few of its members. First we will speak of three of the Old World deer, and of these as they are seen in Great Britain, whose literature has so much to say of them.
THE ANTLERED DEER
1. Virginian, or White-tailed Deer. 2. East Indian Sambar. 3. Moose; European Elk. 4. East Indian Jungle Deer. 5. Roe Deer. 6. Wapiti; American Elk. 7. Caribou Reindeer. (All are stags)