rain-deer

Updated: May 15, 2025

This moss vegetates beneath the snow, where the degree of heat is always about 40; that is, in the middle between the freezing point, and the common heat of the earth; and is for many months of the winter the sole food of the rain-deer, who digs furrows in the snow to find it: and as the milk and flesh of this animal is almost the only sustenance which can be procured during the long winters of the higher latitudes, this moss may be said to support some millions of mankind.

Erasmus Darwin - The Botanic Garden. Part II.: Containing the Loves of the Plants. a Poem.: With Philosophical Notes.