Their smell is very
acute; and by it they are enabled to come up with their party, if they
should have been left behind. They suffer intensely from insects,
especially from a large species (_oestrus tarandi_), which deposits its
eggs in the hole made by its bite. In order to avoid these pests, the
rein-deer are driven during the summer months to the mountains which
overhang the coasts, where their foes are much less numerous. They are
so terrified at their approach, that the sight of one will make them
furious.

Mr. Wentzel says that the Dog-rib Indians go in pairs to kill rein-deer,
the foremost carrying in one hand the horns and part of the skin of a
head of the deer, and in the other, a small bundle of twigs, against
which he, from time to time, rubs the horns, as the deers do. His
companion follows exactly in his footsteps, holding the guns of both in
a horizontal position; so that the muzzle of each projects under the arm
of the first. Both have a fillet of white skin round their foreheads,
and the foremost a strip of the same round each wrist. They gradually
approach the herd, raise their legs very slowly, and put them down again
suddenly, in the manner of deer.

If any of the herd see them, they stop, and the head is made to play its
part by copying their movements. By these means the hunters get into the
very centre of the herd without exciting suspicion; the hindmost man
then pushes forward his comrade's gun, and both fire nearly at the same
instant. The deer scamper off, the hunters trot after them; the poor
animals soon halt to see what alarmed them; their enemies have reloaded
their guns as they proceeded, and give them a second discharge. The
consternation of the deer increases, they run about in the utmost
confusion, and the greater number are frequently thus destroyed.

I have already spoken of dogs which attach themselves to communities,
and now I have a similar instance of a deer to offer, in combination,
however, with a dog, who attached himself to the 42nd Highlanders,
having been presented to that regiment by a friend of one of the
officers. The dog had belonged to a captain in the navy, who dined at
the mess, while the regiment was stationed in Malta, and so attached
himself to that community, that nothing would induce him to leave it; so
his master was forced to leave his favourite Newfoundland behind him;
who, from that moment, would never follow any one who did not wear the
uniform of his frie