The elk and rein-deer are both ruminating animals, as their method of feeding, and the formation of their interior parts demonstrate; nevertheless, Tornæus Scheffer, Regnard, Hulden, and others, have affirmed, that the rein-deer does not ruminate. Ray justly declares this to be incredible; and, in fact, the rein-deer does ruminate like every other animal who has many stomachs. A domestic rein-deer does not live more than fifteen or sixteen years, but it must be presumed, that his life is of a longer duration in a wild state; for this animal being four years before he arrives at his full growth, ought to live twenty-eight or thirty years when in his natural state. The Laplanders hunt the wild rein-deers by different methods, according to the difference of seasons. In the rutting season they make use of their domestic females to attract the wild males. They shoot them with the musket, or with the bow, and they deliver their arrows with such strength, that notwithstanding the thickness of their hair and hide, they often kill one of these beasts with a single arrow. We have collected the facts in the history of the rein-deer with the greater care and circumspection, because we could not acquire personal information on the subject, as it is impossible to keep such an animal alive in these parts. Having mentioned my regret on this subject to some of my friends, Mr. Colinson, Member of the Royal Society in London, a gentleman as commendable for his virtues, as for his literary merit, was so kind as to send me over the skeleton of a rein-deer, and I received from Canada the foetus of a caribou. By means of these two species, and of several horns which were brought to me from different places, I have been enabled to verify the general resemblances, and the principal differences between the rein-deer and the stag. With respect to the elk, I saw a living one about fifteen years ago; but as he continued only a few days in Paris, I had not time to have a drawing finished; and that was the only one by which I had an opportunity to verify the description which the gentlemen of the Academy of Sciences had formerly given of this animal, and to assure myself that it was exact, and perfectly conformable to Nature.[R] [R] With respect to the figures of animals, we have in all cases endeavoured to be more correct than the French edition, by the addition of many original figures accurately studied from the life, and whenever living subjects could not be obtained, by comparing those drawings with preserved figures in different cabinets, by which means we have been enabled to remedy several defects; and in no one more so than in our figure of the _Elk_.