Speaking broadly, the reindeer is a stupid, unwieldy, and intractable brute, not comparing for a moment with the dog in intelligence or adaptability. The common notion that his name is derived from the use of reins in driving him, thus putting him in the class with the horse, is a mistake; the word comes from a Norse root which refers to his moss-browsing habit. The "rein" with which he is driven is a rope tied around one of his horns. He has no cognisance of "gee" and "haw," nor of any other vocal direction, but must be yanked hither and thither with the rope by main force; while to stop him in his mad career, once he is started, it is often necessary to throw him with the rope. In Lapland there are doubtless individual deer better trained; the Lap herders tell of them with pride; but in the main this is a just description of reindeer handling. All the chief herders in Alaska are Laps, brought over for their knowledge of the animals, and the writer has repeatedly ridden behind some of their best deer. Wherein, then, lies the success of the reindeer experiment in Alaska? Chiefly in the provision of a regular meat supply by which the natives and whites in the vicinity of a herd are relieved from the precariousness of the chase or the rapacity of the cold-storage butcher company. The Esquimau, having served his allotted apprenticeship of five years and entered upon possession of a herd, can at any time kill and dress a "kid of the flock" for his family or for the market. The price of butcher's meat has been kept down all over the Seward Peninsula by the competition of the numerous reindeer herds, to the comfort of the population and the exasperation of the butcher company, and many an Esquimau has become passably rich. The skin of the animal also furnishes a warm and much-needed material for clothing and finds a ready sale at a good price. This success is, however, confined so far to the coast. The herds have not thriven in the interior and have now all been withdrawn to the coast. Beasts of prey killed them; a hoof disease destroyed many; others are supposed to have died from eating some poisonous fungus. In five or six years the herd at Tanana had not increased at all, but rather diminished, and the same is true of the other herds on the Yukon. The Indian, moreover, does not take to herding as the Esquimau does, and can hardly be induced to the segregation of himself and his family from his tribe which reindeer herding involves. The "apprentices" on the Yukon were nearly all of them Esquimaux from the coast.