(_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 the _Cervidæ_, occurring in vast herds on the high _fjells_ of
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.
[Illustration]
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.