mammals is greater than the average found in the nest even at an early date.

The Deer Family do not make any pretence at a nest. The home of the young is the neighborhood where they are born. They may consider the old fallen tree-top their head-quarters, but they will lie in a different part of it every day. Moreover, in Texas, "we have never known them to lie at this stage of their life as the young of sheep and goats do, almost touching one another, but they lie with more or less distance separating them, never very far apart and never very close together." (A. Y. Walton, F. & S., June 15, 1895.) Their weight at birth is about 4 pounds (Hornaday). Mr. J. W. Titcomb gives the weight of one at 3 pounds (F. & S., March 18, 1899).

The mother visits them perhaps half a dozen times a day to suckle them; I think that at night she lies next them to warm them, although the available testimony shows that in the daytime she frequents a solitary bed several hundred yards away. I suppose that it is only in search of water that she really goes out of hearing of their squeak. If found and handled at this time they play dead, are limp, silent, and unresisting. This is purely instinctive behavior.

Their natural enemies now are numerous. Bears, wolves, panthers, lynxes, fishers, dogs, foxes, eagles, are the most dangerous of the large kinds. But their spotted coats and their death-like stillness are wonderful safeguards. Many hunters maintain that now the fawns give out no scent. Doubtless this means that their body scent is reduced to a minimum, and since they do not travel they leave no foot scent at all. There is one more large creature that some would put on the fawns' list of enemies, so far as I can learn without good reason, and that is their own father. I can believe that another doe coming near, might resent with a blow the attempted liberties of a fawn clearly not her own, but I know of no reason for supposing that in a wild state the buck would injure his offspring, and I do know of several reasons to the contrary; although I have not been able to secure the best evidence of all, namely, proof of a buck going out of his way to defend a fawn.

The mother is ready at all times to render what help she can; and, unless hopelessly overmatched, she is wonderfully effi

cient. Her readiness to run to the young at their call of distress is, or was, often turned to unfair account by the hunters in the Southwest. They manufactured a reed that imitated the fawn's bleat, and thus brought not only the anxious mother, but sometimes also the prowling cougar and lynx within gunshot.

Natural questions that arise are: Does the mother never forget where she hid her young; can she come back to the very spot in the unvaried woods, even when driven a mile or two away by some dreaded enemy? In the vast majority of cases the mother's memory of the place enables her to come back to the very spot. Sometimes it happens that an enemy forces the little one to run and hide elsewhere while the mother is away. In such cases she sets to work to ransack the neighborhood, to search the ground and the wind for a helpful scent, listening intently for every sound; a rustle or a squeak is enough to make her dash excitedly to the quarter whence it came. It is probable, though I have no proof of it, that now she calls for the fawn, as does a cow or a sheep whose young are missing.

In most cases her hearty endeavors succeed. But there is evidence that sometimes they end in a tragedy,—the fawns, like the children of the story, are lost in the woods.

The Moose and the Wapiti may hide their young two or three days, the Antelope for a week, but the Whitetail fawn is usually left in its first covert for a month or more.

At this age their rich brown coats are set off by rows of pure white spots, like a brown log sprinkled with snow-drops or flecked with sun-spots. This makes a color scheme that is protective as they crouch in the leaves and exquisitely beautiful when displayed on their graceful forms, later on, as they bound or glide by mother's side to the appreciative mirror furnished by their daily drinkingpool.

At four or five weeks of age they begin to follow the mother; this is about the beginning of July, but I examined a fawn that Mr. H. G. Nead found hidden in the grass near Dauphin Lake, Manitoba, on the 22d of August.

Analogy would prove that they begin to eat solid food at this time. They develop rapidly, and become very swift-footed. Some hunters assure one that the young are even swifter than the parents, but this, I

think, is not so. As already noted, it is a rule that of two animals going at the same rate, the smaller always appears faster.

Their daily lives now are as unvaried as the Deer can make them. They rest in some cool shelter during the heat of the morning; about noon they go to their drinking-place. This daily drink is essential, and yet the map shows the Whitetail to be a dweller of the arid plains where no water is. Here, like the Antelope, they find their water-supply in the leaves and shoots of the provident cactus, which is among plants what the camel is among beasts, a living tank and able to store up in times of rain

enough for thirsty days to come.

After a copious draught, sufficient to last her all day long, the mother Whitetail, with her family, retires again to chew the cud in their old retreat, where they escape the deer

Whitetail family lurk in their coppice all day, and at night go not to the lily-padded shore, but to the fields of grain or clover, turnips or garden truck. Lightly the alert and shadow-like mother approaches the five-foot fence; behind in her track are the two fawns, not even shadowy, for they are invisible in their broken coats. A moment she listens, then with a bound she clears the

flies and heat, but suffer the mosquitoes and ticks. As the sun lowers, they get up and go forth stealthily to feed, perhaps by the margin of the forest, where grow their favorite foods, or to the nearest pond where the lily-pads abound, and root, stem, or leaf provides a feast that will tempt the Deer from afar. They munch away till the night grows black, then sneak back to some other part of the home covert-rarely the same bed-where they doze or chew the cud till dawn comes on, when again they take advantage of the half-light that they love and go foraging, till warned by the sunrise that they must once more away.

This is a skeleton of their daily programme in the wilderness, but they modify it considerably for life around the settlement. The noonday visit to the watering-place is dispensed with. Instead they come by night. Foraging in daylight hours is given up. Secret and silent as the coon, the

fence, and, followed by the young, she lands in the banquet spread.

These visits are never during the day, nor are they during the hours of black darkness, for even the Deer require some light to see by. Their favorite time, then, for such a frontier foray is in the moonlight.

The rising of the moon is in all much-hunted regions a signal for the Deer to go forth, and many supposed irregularities in their

habits will be found explained on reference to the lunar calendar.

As September wanes there are two important changes in the fawns: first they are weaned, second they shed their spottedtheir milk-spotted-coat; they are now fawns of the year. As Caton says, they "are weaned about four months of age, but continue to follow the dam-the males for one year, the females for two years." (P. 308.) The exception to this rule is during that interesting first month of the little ones' lives. Then the older sisters or brothers may be lurking in the neighborhood; they may join the mother at the drinking-place, but during the nursing hours she does not want them near, and if need be takes rude means to prevent their coming.

In September, too, there is a disposition to reunite.

later, if puny. Mr. J. W. Titcomb's tame buck in Vermont shed one antler on the 26th of February, and the second on the 1st of March. When the melting snow leaves the sexes free to seek or shun each other at their will, these turn their unantlered heads from the social herd, and wander off, usually two together, as with most of our horned ruminants.

Bare ground with its sprouting grass and shoots now supplies bountiful food. The surplus energies of the does go to the unborn young, of the bucks to their budding antlers. These appear two to six weeks after the old ones are dropped.

Their growth goes on with the marvellous rapidity already noted for antlers. During the early stages they are so soft as to be almost plastic and every accident is recorded in their shape. By August they are complete, though still in velvet, and by the middle of September the buck has scraped and polished them clean. Until the last two or three weeks the horns have blood-vessels throbbing with blood, have nerves, and are sensitive integral parts of the animal's body. They are of course doomed to die and drop, but in that three months when really dead they are to discharge the office for which they were created. This is well known, but Judge Caton, our great Deer authority, makes a surprising additional statement: "The evidence, derived from a very great multitude of observations, made through a course of years, is conclusive that nature prompts the animal to denude its antlers of the covering at a certain period of its growth, while yet the blood has as free access to the covering as it ever had." That is, while yet the horn is living and sensitive the deer voluntarily subjects itself to the painful operation of skinning them.

Why? There must be a good reason. I can only suppose that the earlier his antlers are cleaned, the sooner he can enter the arena in which wives go to the winner, with obvious advantage to his strain.

All summer he has been living as quietly as the doe, sometimes frequenting the same places, but not seeing her if they chance there together. The margins of the forest and of the lake have powerful charms for him now, not only for their food supply, but because there he knows he can protect himself at once from the torment of the flies and the fiercest summer heat. In Audubon

and Bachman we find a most interesting case which shows his method of doing this, as well as the cunning of the old buck. "To avoid the persecution of mosquitoes and ticks, it occasionally, like the Moose in Maine, resorts to some stream or pond and lies for a time immersed in the water, from which the nose and a part of the head only project. We recollect an occasion, when on sitting down to rest on the margin of the Santee River, we observed a pair of antlers on the surface of the water near an old tree, not ten steps from us; we were without a gun, and he was therefore safe from any injury we could inflict on him. Anxious to observe the cunning he would display, we turned our eyes another way, and commenced a careless whistle, as if for our own amusement, walking gradually toward him in a circuitous route until we arrived within a few feet of him. He had now sunk so deep in the water that an inch only of his nose and slight portions of his prongs were seen above the surface. We again sat down on the bank for some minutes, pretending to read a book. At length we suddenly directed our eyes toward him, and raised our hand, when he rushed to the shore, and dashed through the rattling canebrake, in rapid style."

Late September is the season of nuts, and nuts are to the Deer what honey is to the bear. Acorns in particular are its delight and the groves of oaks a daily haunt of the reunited family. The effect of such rich food in quantity is quickly seen. "Indeed," says Caton, "it is astonishing to me how rapidly the buck and the doe will improve as soon as the acorns begin to fall. Ten days are sufficient to change a thin Deer to a fat one, at the time when the summer coat is discarded and the glossy winter dress appears." (P. 308.)

In view of their fondness for acorns it is interesting to note that Sargent's map of the distribution of oaks in America east of the Rockies practically coincides with the range of the Whitetailed Deer.

If the Whitetail had any games or places of meeting we should find them used at this season, when all are fat and free from care. But so far as I have been able to learn they do not slide, play "tag," or "king of the castle," plash or chase each other in circles, or in any way show that they have taken the first steps in the evolution of amusement.

As October comes on, another change sets in with the bucks; their necks begin to swell to extraordinary size and their mating instincts to rouse. Hitherto they have been indifferent to the does when they met by

but this Deer made altogether a louder and different noise from either." (F. & S., Oct. 5, 1895.)

George Crawford and Linklater, guides of Mattawa, assure me that at this season

chance, but now they set out to seek them, and of this I saw some signs on the Ottawa as early as the 15th of September.

the bucks utter a peculiar call like a sheep bleating or like the creaking of two trees rubbing together. As November, the true rutting time, draws near, "the necks of the bucks become enormously enlarged. As early as the last week in October, I measured the neck of a buck that was thirty inches in circumference, only ten inches behind the ear [ordinarily it would have been about twenty around]. The maximum development is attained about the middle of November." (Merriam, p. 116.) Col. Fox speaks of a buck whose neck was thirty-seven inches around.

The buck does not gather around him a band of does like the successful bull Wapiti, and it is sometimes said that he does not issue any sort of a challenge. But the following curious paragraph by "Bachelor" shows that he has both the disposition and the voice to challenge at times. "Some years since I was still-hunting in Arkansas. . I had been standing several minutes when I heard three successive sounds or noises that were much louder and coarser than the whistle or snort of any Deer I had previously heard. At first I thought it some other animal, but presently he was in sight, and when within about 200 yards of me he ran into a flock of turkeys. would single one out and chase it away, then another, until he had chased off nine or ten, likely all of the flock, when he returned to the line or track he was following and came on, part of the time trotting and part of the time walking, but all the time travelling as if he were tracking something. When within eighty yards of me he came on my track and stopped, turning half around, giving me a fine shot. He was only a threepoint buck, and rather small for a threepointer, but he seemed to be on the warpath, judging by the way he chased the turkeys, and he seemed to care very little for me. Now I have frequently heard Deer whistle when frightened, and have heard them snort from the same cause,

Left hind leg of Mule Deer (1), Coast Deer (2), and Whitetail (3), to show the size of the metatarsal glands, respectively 5, 3, and 1 inch long.

any other kind that seems likely to hinder their search for a mate.

"At this season the bucks not only fight among themselves, but occasionally attack man, and more than one unfortunate person has been gored to death by them. In battle they make use of their horns, and also of their fore feet, whose sharp hoofs are capable of inflicting terrible wounds. I was once sitting quietly on a log in a Deer park when a buck approached, and, making a sudden spring, dealt me such a powerful blow on the head, with the hoofs of his fore feet, as to render me unconscious. No sooner was I thrown upon the ground than the vicious beast sprang upon me, and would doubtless have killed me outright had it not been for the intervention of a man, who rushed at him with a club and finally drove him off." Adir.," p. 117.) Mr. J. Parker Whitney relates a similar experience in Maine:

was instantaneous. I had difficulty in withdrawing myself quickly enough to escape the red torrent of life-blood which gushed forth." (F. & S., Dec. 26, 1898.) If, however, the Deer is the conqueror, he never ceases to batter, spear, and trample his victim as long as it shows signs of life.

Several hunters have related to me how, when downed in the snow by some furious buck, they have saved their lives by feigning death.

(Merriam, "Mam.

"It is very rare," he says, "that a buck, however large and savage, will charge a stalker without provocation, but occasionally in the mating season when wounded they will charge. I had an encounter of this kind in 1859 on my second visit to this region, from which I escaped with scarcely a scratch, killing a buck which dressed up 230 pounds, with a single heart thrust of my hunting-knife. It was before the day of repeating-rifles. I had barely time to drop my rifle and step aside and draw my hunting-knife when I was borne down into the snow by the weight of the descending buck, which I caught about the neck, and as he rose, drove my knife to the hilt in his chest at the junction of the throat, severing his windpipe and splitting his heart. Death

Their stillness convinced the stag that his revenge was complete, and he slowly withdrew, casting, nevertheless, many a backward glance to satisfy himself that truly his foe was done for.

But it is for the rival of his own

race that his weap

ons are sharpened and his deadliest animosity poured out, and Mr. Whitney's picture of a battle-ground is

almost as telling as an account of the veritable fray. "The Deer, timid as supposed, is possessed of an indomitable and persistent courage in conflict with its own kind, and will fight to the extremity of weakness and even death before yielding. I have witnessed a number of scenes this season, where the trampled ground and broken shrubs indicated desperate encounters. One spot, a few miles from the lake, and as lately observed as December 11th, indicated a meeting of particular ferocity. I had tracked a large buck through eight inches of snow. The buck had evidently found several others in conflict, and being a free lance, had a free fight, and had immediately engaged. The snow was completely crushed and tumbled over an area somewhat larger than an ordinary circus ring, and it was decidedly apparent that a stag circus of unusual magnitude had occurred without the supervision of a ring master or the encouraging plaudits