Part 6

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.

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.

They are gregarious antelopes, usually associating in parties of from three to a score or more; and it is noteworthy that when on the move the troop is invariably led by an old cow, and never by a bull. When danger is declared, the whole herd makes off in a resounding gallop for the nearest water in hope of finding safety by swimming. The flesh of both species of waterbuck is coarse and pervaded by a strong and unpleasant taste, so that it is almost uneatable by Europeans.

In Uganda, where defassa waterbuck are still comparatively numerous, the calves, of which there is usually one at a birth, are born from about the middle of December to the latter part of February. The male calves do not develop their horns till they are about eight months old, by which time the animals are approximately half-grown. At all times shy and difficult to approach, waterbuck are specially wary when they have calves with them. Unlike so many antelopes and nearly all deer, when they take to flight at the approach of danger they scarcely ever turn round, after galloping a certain distance, to gaze at the intruder; and this absence of curiosity saves many of them their lives. The calves, if taken young, are easily tamed.

Waterbuck are the biggest members of a large genus, all the representatives of which are confined to Africa south of the Sahara; the smaller species being known as kobs. A well-known species is Buffon’s kob (Cobus coba), a nearly uniformly rufous antelope, with blackish fronts to the fore-legs, of the approximate size of a fallow deer, and inhabiting tropical Africa from the west coast to Uganda. Somewhat larger are the puku (C. vardoni) and the lechwi (C. leche), first discovered by Livingstone in the Zambesi district; both these being foxy-coloured antelopes, without black leg-markings. In the Lake Mweru district of Barotseland there exists another kind of lechwi in which the adult males become blackish brown. And much farther north, in the swamps of the White Nile and the Sobat, we meet with two other members of the genus, the white-eared kob (C. leucotis) and Mrs. Gray’s kob (C. maria), in which the old bucks are likewise nearly black, with the exception of the ears, certain portions of the head and throat, and the under-parts, which are white. These black kobs are highly specialised species; although less specialised than the sable antelope, in which the adults of both sexes are black.

THE HARE

(Lepus europæus)

For many years the true or brown hare was known scientifically as Lepus timidus, but as that name was originally bestowed by Linnæus on the blue hare of Sweden, it has been transferred to that species. Perhaps less confusion would have resulted had it been allowed to continue as the technical designation of the species with which it was so long associated.

No one, of course, can mistake a hare for any other animal, and therefore anything in the way of description would be superfluous. It is, however, important to point out the characters by which the brown, or English species, is distinguished from the blue hare, which is found in Scotland and Ireland.

The brown hare, then, is specially characterised by its relatively large size, its very long ears, which exceed the head in length, the presence of a distinct white streak above each eye, and of a rusty red area on the thigh and generally another on the flank; additional characteristics being the black upper surface of the tail and the black tips to the ears. The general colour of the thick soft fur is rufous tawny, mingled with black above and white beneath, the dark area extending, however, to the throat and chest; there is but little difference between the summer and the winter coat, although the latter is always somewhat the lighter. Length of limb, especially in respect of the hind pair, is a structural characteristic of the hare.

The range of the brown hare includes the whole of central Europe, and a small portion of western Asia; its northern limits in Europe being formed by the lowlands of Scotland, southern Sweden, and southern Russia, while in the south it extends to northern Italy, southern France, and Spain. Nine local races of the species are recognised, of which the British is known as L. europæus occidentalis.

Compared with the brown species, the blue or mountain hare, now known as L. timidus, is a smaller animal, with the ears, hind-legs, and tail shorter, the head smaller and more rounded, and the colour frequently bluish or brownish grey above in summer, without any rufous or brown on the flanks, but with black tips to the ears, and the under surface of the body white. The upper surface of the tail may be either dark or white; and as a rule the fur, with the exception of the black ear-tips, turns white in winter. The range of this species extends from Ireland and Sweden to the Alps, the Altai Mountains, the Caspian district, and Japan. It is represented by numerous races, of which three occur in the British Isles. Of these, the Irish hare (L. timidus hibernicus) has the ears shorter than the head, and the tail wholly white; the coat may turn white in severe winters. In the Scottish hare (L. t. scoticus), on the other hand, the ears are nearly as long as the head, the upper side of the tail is dusky in summer, and the whole coat, exclusive of the ear-tips, turns white in winter.

The brown hare is essentially an animal of the open country, and more especially bare fields and fallows, with which its colour harmonises in a wonderful degree. And there is abundant need for this protective resemblance, as the hare has a host of enemies, against whom it has constantly to be on guard, and from whom its sole hope of escape depends upon its limbs. All the three protective senses, hearing, sight, and smell, are highly developed; the long ears detecting every audible sound, while the full, large, round eyes, with widely distended pupils, catch the smallest rays of light at night, when the hare is most active. It has been stated, indeed, that the eyes remain open during sleep, as the eyelids cannot be completely closed; but this is incorrect.

Hares pass most of the day in a lair or “form,” which is a smooth place between tussocks of grass or other covert, but they may live out in the open. The females produce at least two litters during the year, the number of leverets in which usually varies from two to five, although it is stated there have been as many as eleven. The young are born quite active and with their eyes open; those which come into the world in spring being capable of breeding the same autumn. The mother remains with her offspring only for the first five or six days after their birth, and then leaves them to shift for themselves.

The young hares of each litter remain together till half-grown, when they disperse; in fifteen months they attain full size, and their average duration of life is seven or eight years. Owing to their long hind-legs hares run much better uphill than downhill.

THE POLAR BEAR

(Ursus maritimus)

Living amid eternal ice and snow, the polar bear, which is equalled in bodily size only by some of the huge brown bears of Alaska and Kamchatka, evidently owes its white, or in some instances pale cream-coloured, coat to its surroundings; this white livery, like that of the polar hare, being worn throughout the year. The species is always alluded to simply as the polar bear, although its full title should be the north polar bear; the Antarctic, so far as we know at present, having no land mammals.

In its native haunts the polar bear is found alike on the ice-bound coasts and islands, and on the ice-fields themselves, where it obtains much of its food, this being captured both on land and in the water. Indeed, this great carnivore is fully as much at home in the sea as on terra firma, and is capable of swimming long distances at a stretch.