Volume 11, Plate VI / Mammalia (Mammals)

Rein-Deer

Rangifer tarandus

Filling a vital part in the economy of the northern tribes, the Rein-Deer is hunted wild in America, where the small Barren-ground and Woodland Caribou range from Canada northward, feeding in summer on grass shoots and in winter on tree and ground lichens. In Lapland it is wholly domesticated, supplying food, clothing, and tent-hides, and is driven in sledges across the snows at remarkable speed; it uses its broad hoofs to uncover the rein-deer moss and eagerly devours lemmings.