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SAO ERS LEME peer ew ry agrtree - ' a S ee ery nei ee eeMeentnrT in Gum Wa aaa ge Ree UeN Sa MATION CT ree rahe pamteaby bra res Pafaabe np Ps:* Avineth sagen att UREA Sauteed te : veprtes SATA LSA . an aehecnnnn tice Ghze una len nliatitmmpeel-mlad ttle THR RM RT TIM PRT De meen EN gest sere yemc he NIM Nye eeeciecm mech sar Aste : ete soe PLVTe Nang ea Ae abuts” eats wiaig Pid Pe OS? ~ sar Ayes WAIN AEN MCh Otc re aoe error peri er rr re hee toa ere ce re an ete cer meee errata ti ee ere) Nees. seyeece Vee eY Mem bry shade VENZy SOE A vdeo rt BoM ate tet Su Neves Ara aumi ints bene hata sey aeeasthet that ee ea ronnie eeereerrerr is Cita rani eed tue tere Pan Pee oe eI Eye th shee retwed ere rye eees Pnnetietete mous ks Vee ERTL Meme Rey peercnrert: excita then Poteet Genet Deby sete eyetenen ln see tees ich wean! marg Weine tt erorerer rs rman sete PF oeetee gh ate atin 1 adn bmn peer ener ir weet Breer ye WEN ENO Prererererrrincra A Tre are boned a ieteaemenyene Be ele bi yt te Lihat NA ne te EME TIO aoe Mane tag te SAM eet AST canoe eres 14S Venta MeN etereamet In tah te na Se eed h EN LINES Ot eerie nr ahs both Ve eetener ee Mer eeere et oonr tht ao tenet ely so ehece Lean sy ey Olan tt aE Me hat ride Se mae DES MeN ete ENTRAR eed Smet el er aN ciara ana Se ee A ge PT ION wanna seh oWeU ey POR eee te ee renters Az De NA Ru ER UNSEEN is ceeceny Speereo ters e oes - en a a ha a Peer wy papi eacesnen DOIN avin Pepe eee rt = exter Spiny Paper ertes seeeeene wok ag eae beeeey ‘ sda Tey es seeder fiery yen eet wroe eet chistes rer rer) paket es ony Ark yan ce rv Prpreeerenen ihn) eee Nee Vetere tea meinen ectene See Snen a ct ern seats ey SRN creveee gata a saver eas mathe Ye at sade EN Pet Med TEEN eet TET Ee rear RAL nh NSN ate te en cate we exes eter trun aha Ae ere ener Ceri ated Mo ree esate eee 00002515e95 WOU LIBRARY OF CONGRESS THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN’S LIBRARY EDITED BY CASPAR WHITNEY tne DEeER FAMILY THE DEER FAMILY BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT \\ ho VAN, DYKE, D. G. ELLIOT AND A. J. STONE ILLUSTRATED BY CARL RUNGIUS AND OTHERS New Work THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1902 Ali rights reserved THE LIBRARY @F CONGRESS, Two Cores Recetveo MAY. 8 1902 CopvrieHT ENTRY May &~1qer \ COPYRIGHT, 1902, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped April, 1902. M4 AY rvs. /» oa KL Norwood press ¥ ~ J. 8. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. FOREWORD Turis volume is meant for the lover of the wild, free, lonely life of the wilderness, and of the hardy pastimes known to the sojourners therein. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. VICE-PRESIDENT’S ROOM, WASHINGTON, D.C., June, IgoI. CONTENTS THE DEER AND ANTELOPE OF NORTH AMERICA By THEODORE ROOSEVELT CHAPTER r. I. Ill, INTRODUCTORY THE MULE-DEER, OR ROCKY MOUNTAIN BLACKTAIL . THE WHITETAIL DEER THE PRONGHORN ANTELOPE THE WAPITI, OR ROUND-HORNED ELK THE DEER AND ELK OF THE PACIFIC COAST By T. S. VAN DYKE THE ELK OF THE PACIFIC COAST 3 3 : THE MULE-DEER . 5 3 F A ‘: - THE COLUMBIA BLACKTAIL . ; 3 - Rae CARIBOU. By D.: G.) ELLior THE MOOSE: WHERE IT LIVES AND How IT LIvEs. By A. J. STONE . : . F . . 131 167 192 226 257 289 te ee ta oo ee Le ot hh petals Wie @ nats 7 ats | f . ” " Bina 50 Pist- OF ILLUSTRA FIONS Vv THE CHALLENGE . ° . . . ° ° Frontispiece FACING PAGE THE BLACKTAIL OF COLORADO . : : ° ; a) 150 THE WHITETAIL IN FLIGHT 5 ; ‘ 5 : oe NO ie VIRGINIA DEER COMING TO THE WATER . : 4 Be sions THE ANTELOPE AT HOME . é : - : a gi BID STALKING ANTELOPE . : - : : - - 22 A SHOT AT ELK’ . : : : d : : : 3 US o Ee THE RETURN FROM THE HUNT . : : : : i230, * THE CARIBOU OF THE BARREN GROUNDS . : : 200) | CARIBOU ANTLERS FROM THE CASSIAR MOUNTAINS. 2 205 CARIBOU ANTLERS FROM UPPER MAINE . - . - 2724 CARIBOU ANTLERS FROM NEWFOUNDLAND . - : 27206 CARIBOU ANTLERS FROM QUEBEC : : - : 274 Ae CARIBOU ANTLERS FROM NEW BRUNSWICK . : - ez Aue CARIBOU ANTLERS FROM ONTARIO 2 : ; : beer veg CARIBOU ANTLERS FROM THE BARREN GROUND . : PBI) BARREN GROUND CARIBOU HOOF ; : : A 27 CARIBOU ANTLERS. MOUNTAIN CARIBOU . ° < 3) 278 CARIBOU ANTLERS. KENAI PENINSULA - . - ey ZOO nme CARIBOU ANTLERS. GREENLAND ; ‘ ; ; <1) 284 CxRIeOu ANTLERS: (ALASKA 8) fe re S86 a MOOSE . : . ° : : : : : : 2) 2g2 MoosE ANTLERS FROM ALASKA . ; : 5 : «298, MOOsE ANTLERS FROM ALASKA . : : : : 4.302)" MOOsE ANTLERS FROM ALASKA . ; : : : 6314 y 1X Ts xn Hs ee cs RANGE RANGE RANGE RANGE RANGE RANGE RANGE kist te | On, ¢ fe} V7) RANGE OF MULE DEER Q° (ODOCOILEUS HEMIONUS AND SUBSPECIES) Qa RANGE OF CATON’S CALIFORNIA MULE DEER \ & (ODOCOILEUS CALIFORNICUS ) ry. Bee ) - 2 By Dr>-C, Hart Merriam et ae 115° BORMAY & CO.,N.Y, The Mutle-deer 33 are themselves responsible for the fact that their children and children’s children find themselves forever debarred from a pursuit which must under such circumstances become the amusement only of the very rich. If we are really alive to our opportunities under our democratic, social, and political system, we can keep for ourselves — and by “ourselves ” I mean the enormous bulk of men whose means range from moderate to very small —ample opportunity for the enjoyment of hunt- ing and shooting, of vigorous and _ blood-stirring out-of-doors sport. If we fail to take advantage of our possibilities, if we fail to pass, in the interest of all, wise game laws, and to see that these game laws are properly enforced, we will then have to thank ourselves if in the future the game is only found in the game preserves of the wealthy ; and under such circumstances only these same wealthy people will have the chance to hunt it. The mule-deer differs widely from the whitetail in its habits, and especially in its gait, and in the kind of country which it frequents. Although in many parts of its range it is found side by side with its whitetail cousin, the two do not actually associate together, and their propinquity is due simply to the fact, that the river bottoms being a favorite haunt of the whitetail, long tongues of the distribution area of this species are thrust into the 34. Deer and Antelope of North America domain of its bolder, less stealthy and less crafty kinsman. Throughout the plains country the whitetail is the deer of the river bottoms, where the rank growth gives it secure hiding-places, as well as ample food. The mule-deer, on the con- trary, never comes down into the dense growths of the river bottoms. Throughout the plains coun- try it is the deer of the broken Bad Lands which fringe these river bottoms on either side, and of the rough ravines which wind their way through the Bad Lands to the edge of the prairie country which lies back of them. The broken hills, their gorges filled with patches of ash, buck brush, cedar. and dwarf pine, form a country in which the mule- deer revels. The whitetail will, at times, wander far out on the prairies where the grass is tall and rank; but it is not nearly so bold or fond of the open as the mule-deer. The latter is frequently found in hilly country where the covering is so_ scanty that the animal must be perpetually on the watch, as if it were a bighorn or prongbuck, in order to spy its foes at a distance and escape be- fore they can come near; whereas the whitetail usually seeks to elude observation by hiding — by its crouching, stealthy habits. It must be remembered, however, that with the mule-deer, as with all other species of animals, there is a wide variability in habits under differ- ent conditions. ‘This is often forgotten even by The Mule-deer RG trained naturalists, who accept the observations made in one locality as if they applied throughout the range of the species. Thus in the excellent account of the habits of this species in Mr. Ly- deker’s book on the “ Deer of All Lands” it is asserted that mule-deer never dwell permanently in the forest, and feed almost exclusively on grass. The first statement is entirely, and the second mainly, true of the mule-deer of the plains from the Little Missouri westward to the headwaters of the Platte, the Yellowstone, and the Big Horn; but there are large parts of the Rockies in which neither statement applies at all. In the course of several hunting trips among the densely wooded mountains of western Montana, along the water- shed separating the streams that flow into Clarke’s Fork of the Columbia from those that ultimately empty into Kootenay Lake, I found the mule- deer plentiful in many places where practically the whole country was covered’ by dense for- est, and where the opportunities for grazing were small indeed, as we found to our cost in connec- tion with our pack-train. In this region the mule- deer lived the entire time among the timber, and subsisted for the most part on browse. Occasion- ally they would find an open glade and graze; but the stomachs of those killed contained not grass, but blueberries and the leaves and delicate tips of bushes. I was not in this country in win- 36 =Deer and Antelope of North America ter, but it was perfectly evident that even at that season the deer must spend their time in the thick timber. There was no chance for them to go above the timber line, because the mountains were densely wooded to their summits, and the white goats of the locality also lived in the timber. It was far harder to get the mule-deer than it was to get the white goats, for the latter were infinitely more conspicuous, were slower in their movements, and bolder and less shy. Almost the only way we succeeded in killing the deer was by finding one of their well-trodden paths and lying in wait beside it very early in the morning or quite late in the afternoon. The season was August and September, and the deer were astir long before sunset. They usually, but not always, lay high up on the mountain sides, and while they some- times wandered to and fro browsing on the moun- tains, they often came down to feed in the valleys, where the berries were thicker. Their paths were well beaten, although, like all game trails, after being as plainly marked as a pony track for a quarter of a mile or so, they would suddenly grow faint and vanish. The paths ran nearly straight up and down hill, and even when en- tirely undisturbed, the deer often came down them at a great rate, bouncing along in a way that showed that they have no fear of develop- ing the sprung knees which we should fear for The Mule-deer 37 a domestic animal which habitually tried the same experiment. In other habits also the deer vary widely in different localities. For instance, there is an absolute contrast as regards their migratory habits between the mule-deer, which live in the Bad Lands along the Little Missouri, and those which live in northwestern Colorado; and this differ- ence is characteristic generally of the deer which in the summer dwell in the high mountains, as contrasted with those which bear and rear their young in the low, broken, hill-country. Along the Little Missouri there was no regular or clearly defined migration of the mule-deer in a mass. Some individual, or groups of individuals, shifted their quarters for a few miles, so that in the spring, for instance, a particular district of a few square miles, in which they had been abun- dant before, might be wholly without them. But there were other districts which happened to afford at all times sufficient food and shelter, in which they were to be found the year round; and the animals did not band and migrate as the prongbucks did in the same region. In the immediate neighborhood of my ranch there were groups of high hills containing springs of water, good grass, and an abundance of cedar, ash, and all kinds of brush in which mule-deer were per- manent residents. There were big dry creeks, 38 Deer and Antelope of North America with well-wooded bottoms, lying among rugged hills, in which I have found whitetail and mule- deer literally within a stone’s throw of one another. I once started from two adjoining pockets in this particular creek two does, each with a fawn, one being a mule-deer and the other a whitetail. On another occasion, on an early spring afternoon, just before the fawns were born, I came upon a herd of twenty whitetails, does, and young of the preceding year, grazing greedily on the young grass; and half a mile up the creek, in an almost exactly similar locality, I came upon just such a herd of mule-deer. In each case the animals were so absorbed in the feasting, which was to make up for their winter privations, that I was able to stalk to within fifty yards, though of course I did not shoot. In northwestern Colorado the conditions are entirely different. Throughout the region there is not a single whitetail to be found, and never has been, although in the winter range of the mule-deer there are a few prongbuck; and the wapiti once abounded. The mule-deer are still plentiful. They make a complete migration summer and winter, so that in neither season is a single individual to be found in the haunts they frequent during the other season. In the sum- mer they live and bring forth their young high up in the main chain of the mountains, in a The Mutle-deer 39 beautiful country of northern forest growth, dotted with trout-filled brooks and clear lakes. The snowfall is so deep in these wooded moun- tains that the deer would run great risk of perish- ing if they stayed therein, and indeed, could only winter there at all in very small numbers. Ac- ‘cordingly, when the storms begin in the fall, usually about the first of October, just before the rut, the deer assemble in bands and move west and south to the lower, drier country, where the rugged hills are here and there clothed with an open growth of pinyon and cedar, instead of the tall spruces and pines of the summer range. The migrating bands follow one another along definite trails over mountains, through passes and valleys, and across streams; and their winter range swarms with them a few days after the fore- runners have put in their appearance in what has been, during the summer, an absolutely deer- less country. In January and February, 1901, I spent five weeks north of the White River, in northwestern Colorado. It was in the heart of the wintering ground of the great Colorado mule-deer herd. Forty miles away to the east, extending north, lay the high mountains in which these deer had spent the summer. The winter range, in which I was at the time hunting cougars, is a region of comparatively light snowfall, though the cold is 40 Deer and Antelope of North America very bitter. On several occasions during my stay the thermometer went down to twenty degrees below zero. The hills, or low mountains, for it was difficult to know which to call them, were steep and broken, and separated by narrow flats covered with sage brush. The ordinary trees were the pinyon and cedar, which were scattered in rather open groves over the moun- tain sides and the spurs between the ravines. There were also patches of quaking asp, scrub oak, and brush. The entire country was thinly covered with ranches, and there were huge pas- tures enclosed by wire fences. I have never seen the mule-deer so numerous anywhere as they were in this country at this time; although in 1883, on the Little Missouri, they were almost as plentiful. There was not a day we did not see scores, and on some days we saw hundreds. Frequently they were found in small parties of two or three, or a dozen individuals, but on occasions we saw bands of thirty or forty. Only rarely were they found singly. The fawns were of course well grown, being eight or nine months old. They were still accompanying their mothers. Ordinarily a herd would consist of does, fawns, and yearlings, the latter carrying their first ant- lers. But it was not possible to lay down a unt- versal rule. Again and again I saw herds in which there were one or two full-grown bucks The Mule-deer 4l associating with the females and younger deer. At other times we came across small bands of full-grown bucks by themselves; and occasionally a solitary buck. Considering the extent to which these deer must have been persecuted, I did not think them shy. We were hunting on horseback, and had hounds with us, so we made no especial attempt to avoid noise. Yet very frequently we would come close on the deer before they took alarm; and even when alarmed they would some- times trot slowly off, halting and looking back. On one occasion, in some bad lands, we came upon four bucks which had been sunning them- selves on the face of a clay wall. They jumped up and went off one at a time, very slowly, pass- ing diagonally by us, certainly not over seventy yards off. All four could have been shot without effort, and as they had fine antlers I should cer- tainly have killed one, had it been the open season. When we came on these Colorado mule-deer suddenly, they generally behaved exactly as their brethren used to in the old days on the Little Missouri; that is, they would run off at a good speed for a hundred yards or so, then slow up, halt, gaze inquisitively at us for some seconds, and again take to flight. While the sun was strong they liked to lie out in the low brush on slopes where they would get the full benefit of 42 Deer and Antelope of North America the heat. During the heavy snowstorms they usually retreated into some ravine where the trees grew thicker than usual, not stirring until the weight of the storm was over. Most of the night, especially if it was moonlight, they fed; but they were not at all regular about this. I frequently saw them standing up and grazing, or more rarely browsing, in the middle of the day, and in the late afternoon they often came down to graze on the flats within view of the different ranch houses where I happened to stop. The hours for feeding and resting, however, always vary accordingly as the deer are or are not perse- cuted. In wild localities I have again and again found these deer grazing at all hours of the day, and coming to water at high noon ; whereas, where they have been much persecuted, they only begin to feed after dusk, and come to water after dark. Of course during this winter weather they could get no water, snow supplying its place. I was immensely interested with the way they got through the wire fences. A mule-deer is a great jumper; I have known them to clear with ease high timber corral fences surrounding hay- ricks. If the animals had chosen, they could have jumped any of the wire fences I saw; yet never in a single instance did I see one of them so jump a fence, nor did I ever find in the tell-tale snow tracks which indicated their having done so, The Mule-deer 43 They paid no heed whatever to the fences, so far as I could see, and went through them at will; but they always got between the wires, or went under the lowest wire. The dexterity with which they did this was extraordinary. When alarmed they would run full speed toward a wire fence, would pass through it, often hardly alter- ing their stride, and never making any marks in the snow which looked as though they had crawled. Twice I saw bands thus go through a wire fence, once at speed, the other time when they were not alarmed. On both occasions they were too far off to allow me to see exactly their mode of procedure, but on examining the snow where they had passed, there was not the slightest mark of their bodies, and the alteration in their gait, as shown by the footprints, was hardly per- ceptible. In one instance, however, where I scared a young buck which ran over a hill and through a wire fence on the other side, I found one of his antlers lying beside the fence, it having evidently been knocked off by the wire. Their antlers were getting very loose, and toward the end of our stay they had begun to shed them. The deer were preyed on by many foes. Sports- men and hide hunters had been busy during the fall migrations, and the ranchmen of the neighbor- hood were shooting them occasionally for food, even when we were out there. The cougars at 44 Deer and Antelope of North America this season were preying upon them practically to the exclusion of everything else. We came upon one large fawn which had been killed by a bobcat. The gray wolves were also preying upon them. A party of these wolves can sometimes run down even an unwounded blacktail; I have myself known of their performing this feat. Twice on this very hunt we came across the carcasses of blacktail which had thus been killed by wolves, and one of the cowpunchers at a ranch where we . were staying came in and reported to us that while riding among the cattle that afternoon he had seen two coyotes run a young mule-deer to a stand- still, and they would without doubt have killed it had they not been frightened by his approach. Still the wolf is very much less successful than the cougar in killing these deer, and even the cou- gar continually fails in his stalks. But the deer were so plentiful that at this time all the cougars we killed were very fat, and evidently had no difficulty in getting as much venison as they needed. The wolves were not as well off, and now and then made forays on the young stock of the ranchmen, which at this season the cougar let alone, reserving his attention to them for the sum- mer season when the deer has vanished. In the Big Horn Mountains, where I also saw a good deal of the mule-deer, their habits were intermediate between those of the species that The Mule-deer 45 dwell on the plains and those that dwell in the densely timbered regions of the Rockies further to the northwest. In the summer time they lived high up on the plateaus of the Big Horn, some- times feeding in the open glades and sometimes in the pine forests. In the fall they browsed on certain of the bushes almost exclusively. In win- ter they came down into the low country. South of the Yellowstone Park, where the wapiti swarmed, the mule-deer were not numerous. I believe that by choice they prefer rugged, open country, and they certainly care comparatively little for bad weather, as they will often visit bleak, wind-swept ridges in midwinter, as being places where they can best get food at that season, when the snow lies deep in the sheltered places. Nevertheless, many of the species pass their whole life in thick timber. My chief opportunities for observing the mule- deer were in the eighties, when I spent much of my time on my ranch on the Little Missouri. Mule-deer were then very plentiful, and I killed more of them than of all other game put together. At that time in the cattle country no ranchman ever thought of killing beef, and if we had fresh meat at all it was ordinarily venison. In the fall we usually tried to kill enough deer to last out the winter. Until the settlers came in, the Little Missouri country was an ideal range for 46 Deer and Autelope of North America mule-deer, and they fairly swarmed; while elk were also plentiful, and the restless herds of the buffalo surged at intervals through the land. After 1882 and 1883 the buffalo and elk were killed out, the former completely, and the latter practically, and the skin hunters, and then the ranchers, turned their attention chiefly to the mule-deer. It lived in open country where there was cover for the stalker, and so it was much easier to kill than either the whitetail, which was found in the dense cover of the river bot- toms, or the prongbuck, which was found far back from the river, on the flat prairies where there was no cover at all. I have been informed of other localities in which the antelope has dis- appeared long before the mule-deer, and I believe that in the Rockies the mule-deer has a far better chance of survival than the antelope has on the plains; but on the Little Missouri the antelope continued plentiful long after the mule-deer had become decidedly scarce. In 1886 1 think the antelope were fully as abundant as ever they were, while the mule-deer had wofully diminished. In the early nineties there were still regions within thirty or forty miles of my ranch, where the ante- lope were very plentiful—far more so than the mule-deer were at that time. Now they are both scarce along the Little Missouri, and which will outlast the other I cannot say. The Mule-deer 47 In the old days, as I have already said, it was by no means infrequent to see both the whitetail and the mule-deer close together, and when, under such circumstances, they were alarmed, one got a peculiarly clear idea of the extraordinary gait which is the mule-deer’s most striking character- istic. It trots wells, gallops if hard pressed, and is a good climber, though much inferior to the mountain sheep. But its normal gait consists of a series of stiff-legged bounds, all four feet leav- ing and striking the ground at the same time. This gait differs more from the gait of bighorn, prongbuck, whitetail, and wapiti than the gaits of these latter animals differ among themselves. The wapiti, for instance, rarely gallops, but when he does, it is a gallop of the ordinary type. The prongbuck runs with a singularly even gait; whereas the whitetail makes great bounds, some much higher than others. But fundamentally in all cases the action is the same, and has no resem- blance to the stiff-legged buck jumping which is the ordinary means of progression of the mule- deer. These jumps carry it not only on the level, but up and down hill at a great speed. It is said to be a tiresome gait for the animal, if hunted for any length of time on the level; but of this I cannot speak with full knowledge. Compared to the wapiti, the mule-deer, like our other small deer, is a very silent animal. For 48 Deer and Antelope of North America a long time I believed it uttered no sound beyond the snort of alarm and the rare bleat of the doe to her fawn; but one afternoon I heard two bucks grunting or barking at one another in a ravine back of the ranch-house, and crept up and shot them. I was still uncertain whether this was an indication of a regular habit; but a couple of years later, on a moonlight night just after sunset, I heard a big buck travelling down a ravine and continually barking, evidently as a love challenge. I have been informed by some hunters that the bucks at the time of the rut not infrequently thus grunt and bark; but most hunters are ignorant of this habit; and it is certainly not a common practice. The species is not nearly as gregarious as the wapiti or caribou. During the winter the bucks are generally found singly, or in small parties by themselves, although occasionally one will associ- ate with a party of does and of young deer. When in May or June —for the exact time varies with the locality —the doe brings forth her young, she retires to some lonely thicket. Sometimes one and sometimes two fawns are brought forth. They lie very close for the first few days. I have picked them up and handled them without their making the slightest effort to escape, while the mother hung about a few hundred yards off. On one occasion I by accident surprised a doe in the very The Mule-deer 49 act of giving birth to two fawns. One had just been born and the other was born as the doe made her first leap away. She ran off with as much speed and unconcern as if nothing what- ever had happened. I passed on immediately, lest she should be so frightened as not to come back to the fawns. It has happened that where I have found the newly born fawns I have invari- ably found the doe to be entirely alone, but her young of the previous year must sometimes at least be in the neighborhood, for a little later I have frequently seen the doe and her fawn or fawns, and either one or two young of the previ- ous year, together. Often, however, these young deer will themselves be alone, or associated with an older doe which is barren. The bucks at the same time go to secluded places; sometimes singly, while sometimes an old buck will be accom- panied by a younger one, or a couple of old bucks will lie together. They move about as little as possible while their horns are growing, and if a hunter comes by, they will lie far closer than at any other time of the year, squatting in the dense thickets as if they were whitetails. When in the Bad Lands of the western Da- kotas the late September breezes grow cold, then the bucks, their horns already clean of velvet which they have thrashed off on the bushes and saplings, feel their necks begin to swell; and 50 Deer and Antelope of North America early in October — sometimes not until Novem- ber — they seek the does. The latter, especially the younger ones, at first flee in frantic haste. As the rut goes on the bucks become ever bolder and more ardent. Not only do they chase the does by night but also by day. I have sat on the side of a ravine in the Bad Lands at noon and seen a young doe race past me as if followed by a wolf. When she was out of sight a big buck appeared on her trail, following it by scent, also at speed. When he had passed I got up, and the motion frightened a younger buck which was fol- lowing two or three hundred yards in the rear of the big one. After a while the doe yields, and the buck then accompanies her. If, however, it is early in the season, he may leave her entirely in order to run after another doe. Later in the season he will have a better chance of adding the second doe to his harem, or of robbing another buck of the doe or does which he has accumu- lated. I have often seen merely one doe and one buck together, and I have often seen a single doe which for several days was accompanied by sev- eral bucks, one keeping off the others. But generally the biggest bucks collect each for him- self several does, yearlings also being allowed in the band. The exact amount of companionship with the does allowed these young bucks depends somewhat upon the temper of the master buck. THE BLACKTAIL OF COLORADO fi! an = - ; ‘ f é > > - P | ie 2 j “'p, — he \ ‘ Bn er M ee —_ 4 ie - _ \ ? x 7 5 te ; - tat 4 . h te \ 4 : * x — ‘ : : \ . i ; * s an : ' ' 1 i j - j ; ‘ i e 7 : { . The Mule-deer 51 In books by imperfectly informed writers we often see allusions to the buck as protecting the doe, or even taking care of the fawn. Charles Dudley Warner, for instance, in describing with great skill and pathos an imaginary deer hunt, after portraying the death of the doe, portrays the young fawn as following the buck when the latter comes back to it in the evening.’ While the fawn is so young as to be wholly dependent upon the doe, the buck never comes near either. More- over, during the period when the buck and the doe are together, the buck’s attitude is merely that of a brutal, greedy, and selfish tyrant. He will un- hesitatingly rob the doe of any choice bit of food, and though he will fight to keep her if another buck approaches, the moment that a dangerous foe appears his one thought is for his own preser- vation. He will not only desert the doe, but if he is an old and cunning buck, he will try his best to sacrifice her by diverting the attention of the pursuer to her and away from him. By the end of the rut the old bucks are often exhausted, their sides thin, their necks swollen; though they are never as gaunt as wapiti bulls at this time. They then rest as much as possible, 1 While the situation thus described was an impossible one, the purpose of Mr. Warner’s article was excellent, it being intended as a protest against hunting deer while the fawns are young, and against killing them in the water. 52. Deer and Antelope of North America feeding all the time to put on fat before winter arrives, and rapidly attaining a very high condi- tion. Except in dire need no one would kill a deer after the hard weather of winter begins or before the antlers of the buck are full-grown and the fawns are out of the spotted coat. Even in the old days we, who lived in the ranch country, al- ways tried to avoid killing deer in the spring or early summer, though we often shot buck ante- lope at those times. The close season for deer varies in different states, and now there is gen- erally a limit set to the number any one hunter can kill; for the old days of wasteful plenty are gone forever. To my mind there is a peculiar fascination in hunting the mule-deer. By the time the hunting season has arrived, the buck is no longer the slinking beast of the thicket, but a bold and yet wary dweller in the uplands. Frequently he can be found clear of all cover, often at midday, and his habits at this season are, from the hunter’s standpoint, rather more like those of the wapiti than of the whitetail; but each band, though con- tinually shifting its exact position, stays perma- nently in the same tract of country, whereas wapiti are more apt to wander. In the old days, when mule-deer were plentiful in country through which a horse could go at a The Mutle-deer 53 fair rate of speed, it was very common for the hunter to go on horseback and not to dismount save at the moment of the shot. In the early eighties, while on my ranch on the Little Missouri, this was the way in which I usually hunted. When I first established my ranch I have often gone out in the fall, after the day’s work was over, and killed a deer before dark. If it was in Sep- tember, I would sometimes start after supper. Later in the year I would take supper when I got back. Under such circumstances my mode of procedure was perfectly simple. Deer were plentiful. Every big tangle of hills, every set of grassy coulies winding down to a big creek bot- tom, was sure to contain them. The time being short, with at most only an hour or two of light, I made no effort to find the tracks of a deer or to spy one afar off. I simply rode through the likely places, across the heads of the ravines or down the winding valleys, until I jumped a deer close enough up to give me a shot. The unshod hoofs of the horse made but little noise as he shuffled along at the regular cow-pony fox trot, and I kept him close into the bank or behind cover, so as to come around each successive point without warning. If the ground was broken and rugged, I made no attempt to go fast. If, on the other hand, I struck a smooth ravine with gentle curves, I would often put the pony to a sharp 54. Deer and Antelope of North America canter or gallop, so as to come quickly on any deer before it could quite make up its mind what course was best to follow. Sooner or later, as I passed a thick clump of young ash or buck brush, or came abruptly around a sharp bend, there would be a snort, and then the thud, thud, thud, of four hoofs striking the ground exactly in unison, and away would go a mule-deer with the peculiar bounding motion of its kind. The pony, well accustomed to the work, stopped short, and I was off its back in an instant. If the deer had not made out exactly what I was, it would often show by its gait that it was not yet prepared to run straight out of sight. Under such circum- stances I would wait until it stopped and turned round to look back. If it was going very fast, I took the shot running. Once I thus put up a young buck from some thick brush in the bottom of a winding washout. I leaped off the pony, standing within ten yards of the washout. The buck went up a hill on my left, and as he reached the top and paused for a second on the sky line, I fired. At the shot there was a great scram- bling and crashing in the washout below me, and another and larger buck came out and tore off in frantic haste. I fired several shots at him, finally bringing him down. Meanwhile, the other buck had disappeared, but there was blood on his trail, and I found him lying down in the next The Mule-deer $5 coulie, and finished him. This was not much over a mile from the ranch-house, and after dress- ing the deer, I put one behind the saddle and one on it, and led the pony home. Such hunting, though great fun, does not imply any particular skill either in horsemanship, marks- manship, or plainscraft and knowledge of the ani- mal’s habits; and it can of course be followed only where the game is very plentiful. Ordinarily the mule-deer must be killed by long tramping among the hills, skilful stalking, and good shooting. The successful hunter should possess good eyes, good wind, and good muscles. He should know how to take cover and how to use his rifle. The work is sufficiently rough to test any man’s endur- ance, and yet there is no such severe and intense toil as in following true mountain game, like the bighorn or white goat. As the hunter’s one aim is to see the deer before it sees him, he can only use the horse to take him to the hunting-ground, Then he must go through the most likely ground and from every point of vantage scan with minute care the landscape round about, while himself un- seen. If the country is wild and the deer have not been much molested, he will be very apt to come across a band that is feeding. Under such circumstances it is easy to see them at once. But if lying down, it is astonishing how the gray of their winter coats fits in with the color of their 56 Deer and Antelope of North America surroundings. Too often I have looked carefully over a valley with my glasses until, thinking I had searched every nook, I have risen and gone for- ward, only to see a deer rise and gallop off out of range from some spot which I certainly thought I had examined with all possible precaution. If the hunter is not himself hidden, he will have his labor for his pains. Neither the mule-deer nor the white-tail is by any means as keen-sighted as the prong-horn antelope, and men accustomed chiefly to antelope shooting are quite right in speaking of the sight of deer as poor by comparison, But this is only by comparison. A motionless object does not attract a deer’s gaze as it attracts the tele- scopic eye of a prongbuck; but any motion is seen at once, and as soon as this has occurred, the chances of the hunter are usually at an end. On the other hand, from the nature of its haunts the mule-deer usually offers fairly good opportunities for stalking. It is not as big or as valuable as the elk, and therefore it is not as readily seen or as eagerly followed, and in consequence holds its own better. But though the sport it yields calls normally for a greater amount of hardihood and endurance in the hunter than is the case with the sport yielded by the prongbuck, and especially by the whitetail, yet when existing in like numbers it is easier to kill than either of these two animals. The Mule-deer $7 Sometimes in the early fall, when hunting from the ranch, I have spent the night in some likely locality, sleeping rolled up in a blanket on the. ground so as to be ready to start at the first streak of dawn. On one such occasion a couple of mule-deer came to where my horse was pick- eted just before I got up. I heard them snort or whistle, and very slowly unwrapped myself from the blanket, turned over, and crawled out, rifle in hand. Overhead the stars were paling in the faint gray light, but the ravine in which the deer were was still so black that, watch as I would, I ‘could not see them. I feared to move around lest I might disturb them, but after wriggling toward a little jutting shoulder I lay still to wait for the light. They went off, however, while it was still too dusk to catch more than their dim and form- less outlines, and though I followed them as rap- idly and cautiously as possible, I never got a shot at them. On other occasions fortune has favored me, and before the sun rose I have spied some buck leisurely seeking his day bed, and have been able either to waylay him or make a running stalk on him from behind. In the old days it was the regular thing with most ranchmen to take a trip in the fall for the purpose of laying in the winter’s supply of venison. I frequently took such trips myself, and though occasionally we killed wapiti, bighorn, prong- 58 Deer and Antelope of North America buck, and whitetail, our ordinary game was the mule-deer. Around my ranch it was not neces- sary to go very far. A day’s journey with the wagon would usually take us to where a week's hunting would enable us to return with a dozen deer or over. If there was need of more, I would repeat the hunt later on. I have several times killed three of these deer in a day, but I do not now recall ever killing a greater number. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that every scrap of flesh was used. These hunts were always made late in the fall, usually after the close of the rut. The deer were then banded, and were commonly found in parties of from three or four to a score, although the big bucks might be lying by themselves. The weather was apt to be cold, and the deer evidently liked to sun themselves, so that at midday they could be found lying, sometimes in thin brush and some- times boldly out on the face of a cliff or hill. If they were unmolested, they would feed at intervals throughout the day, and not until the bands had been decimated by excessive hunting, did they ever spend the hours of daylight in hiding. On such a hunt our proceedings were perfectly simple. The nights were longer than the days, and therefore we were away from camp at the first streak of dawn, and might not return until long after darkness. All the time between was spent The Mule-deer 59 in climbing and walking through the rugged hills, keeping a sharp lookout for our game. Only too often we were seen before we ourselves saw the quarry, and even when this was not the case, the stalks were sometimes failures. Still blank days were not very common. Probably every hunter remembers with pride some particular stalk. I recall now outwitting a big buck which I had seen and failed to get on two successive days. He was hanging about a knot of hills with brush on their shoulders, and was not only very watchful, but when he lay down always made his bed at the lower end of a brush patch, whence he could see into the valley below, while it was impossible to approach him from above, through the brush, with- out giving the alarm. On the third day I saw him early in the morning, while he was feeding. He was very watchful, and I made no attempt to get near him, simply peeping at him until he finally went into a patch of thin brush and lay down. As I knew what he was I could distinctly make him out. If I had not seen him go in, I certainly never would have imagined that he was a deer, even had my eyes been able to pick him out at all among the gray shadows and small dead tree-tops. Having waited until he was well settled down, I made a very long turn and came up behind him, only to find that the direction of the wind and the slope of the hill rendered it an absolute 60 Deer and Antelope of North America impossibility to approach him unperceived. After careful study of the ground I abandoned the effort, and returned to my former position, having spent several hours of considerable labor in vain. — It was now about noon, and I thought I would lie still to see what he would do when he got up, and accordingly I ate my lunch stretched at full length in the long grass which sheltered me from the wind. From time to time I peered cautiously between two stones toward where the buck lay. It was nearly mid-afternoon before he moved. Sometimes mule-deer rise with a single motion, all four legs unbending like springs, so that the four hoofs touch the ground at once. This old buck, however, got up very slowly, looked about for certainly five minutes, and then came directly down the hill and toward me. When he had nearly reached the bottom of the valley between us he turned to the right and sauntered rapidly down it. Islpped back and trotted as fast as I could without losing my breath along the hither side of the spur which lay between me and the buck. While I was out of sight he had for some reason made up his mind to hurry, and when I was still fifty yards from the end of the spur he came in sight just beyond it, passing at a swing- ing trot. I dropped on one knee so quickly that for a moment he evidently could not tell what I was, — my buckskin shirt and gray slouch-hat The Mutle-deer 61 fading into the color of the background — and halted, looking sharply around. Before he could break into flight my bullet went through his shoulders. Twice I have killed two of these deer at a shot; once two bucks, and once a doe and a buck. It has proved difficult to keep the mule-deer in captivity, even in large private parks or roomy zoological gardens. I think this is because hitherto the experiment has been tried east of the Mississippi in an alien habitat. The wapiti and whitetail are species that are at home over most of the United States, East and West, in rank, wet prairies, dense woodland, and dry mountain regions alike; but the mule-deer has a far more sharply localized distribution. In the Bronx Zoological Gardens, in New York, Mr. Hornaday informs me that he has comparatively little difh- culty in keeping up the stock alike of wapiti and whitetail by breeding —as indeed any visitor can see for himself. The same is true in the game preserves in the wilder regions of New York and New England; but hitherto the mule-deer has offered an even more difficult problem in captivity than the pronghorn antelope. Doubtless the difficulty would be minimized if the effort at domestication were made in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains. 62 Deer and Antelope of North America The true way to preserve the mule-deer, how- ever, as well as our other game, is to establish on the nation’s property great nurseries and winter- ing grounds, such as the Yellowstone Park, and then to secure fair play for the deer outside these grounds by a wisely planned and faithfully exe- cuted series of game laws. This is the really democratic method of solving the problem. Occa- sionally even yet some one will assert that the game “belongs to the people, and should be given over to them” — meaning, thereby, that there should be no game laws, and that every man should be at liberty indiscriminately to kill every kind of wild animal, harmless, useless, or noxious, until the day when our woods become wholly bereft of all the forms of higher animal life. Such an argument can only be made from the standpoint of those big game dealers in the cities who care nothing for the future, and desire to make money at the present day by a slaughter which in the last analysis only benefits the wealthy people who are able to pay for the game, —for once the game has been destroyed, the livelihood of the professional gunner will be taken away, Most emphatically wild game not on _ private property does belong to the people, and the only way in which the people can secure their owner- ship. is by’ protecting it im the imterest johaal against the vandal few. As we grow older I The Mule-deer 63 think most of us become less keen about that part of the hunt which consists in the killing. I know that as far as I am concerned I have long gone past the stage when the chief end of a hunting trip was the bag. One or two bucks, or enough grouse and trout to keep the camp supplied, will furnish all the sport necessary to give zest and point to a trip in the wilderness. When hunters proceed on such a plan they do practically no damage to the game. Those who are not willing to act along these lines of their own free will, should be made to by the state. The people of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, and of the states near by, can do a real service, primarily to themselves, but secondarily to others also, by framing and executing laws which will keep these noble deer as permanent denizens of their lofty mountains and beautiful valleys. There are other things much more important than game laws; but it will be a great mistake to imagine because until recently in Europe game laws have been administered in the selfish interest of one class and against the interest of the people as a whole, that here in this country, and under our institutions, they would not be beneficial to all our people. So far from game laws being in the interest of the few, they are emphatically in the interest of the many. The very rich man can stock a private game preserve, or journey afar off 64 Deer and Antelope of North America to where game is still plentiful; but it is only where the game is carefully preserved by the state that the man of small means has any chance to enjoy the keen delight of the chase. Crit Hix. lit THE WHITETAIL DEER Tue whitetail deer is now, as it always has been, the most plentiful and most widely distributed of American big game. It holds its own in the land better than any other species, because it is by choice a dweller in the thick forests and swamps, the places around which the tide of civilization flows, leaving them as islets of refuge for the wild creatures which formerly haunted all the country. The range of the whitetail is from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Canadian to the Mex- ican borders, and somewhat to the north and far to the south of these limits. The animal shows a wide variability, both individually and locally, within these confines; from the hunter’s stand- point it is not necessary to try to determine ex- actly the weight that attaches to these local variations. There is also a very considerable variation in habits. As compared with the mule-deer, the whitetail is not a lover of the mountains. As compared with the prongbuck, it is not a lover of F 6 5 66 Deer and Antelope of North America the treeless plains. Yet in the Alleghanies and the Adirondacks, at certain seasons especially, and in some places at all seasons, it dwells high among the densely wooded mountains, wandering over their crests and sheer sides, and through the deep ravines; while in the old days there were parts of Texas and the Indian Territory where it was found in great herds far out on the prairie. Moreover, the peculiar nature of its chosen habi- tat, while generally enabling it to resist the on- slaught of man longer than any of its fellows, sometimes exposes it to speedy extermination. To the westward of the rich bottom-lands and low prairies of the Mississippi Valley proper, when the dry plains country is reached, the natural conditions are much less favorable for whitetail than for other big game. The black bear, which in the East has almost precisely the same habitat as the whitetail, disappears entirely on the great plains, and reappears in the Rockies in regions which the whitetail does not reach. All over the great plains, into the foot-hills of the Rockies, the whitetail is found, but only in the thick timber of the river bottoms. Throughout the regions of the Upper Missouri and Upper Platte, the Big Horn, Powder, Yellowstone, and Cheyenne, over all of which I have hunted, the whitetail lives among the cottonwood groves and dense brush growth that fringe the river beds and here and The Whitetail Deer 67 there extend some distance up the mouths of the large creeks. In these places the whitetail and the mule-deer may exist in close proximity; but normally neither invades the haunts of the other. Along the ordinary plains river, such as the Little Missouri, where I ranched for many years, there are three entirely different types of country through which a man passes as he travels away from the bed of the river. There is first the allu- vial river bottom covered with cottonwood and box-elder, together with thick brush. These bot- toms may be a mile or two across, or they may shrink to but a few score yards. After the exter- mination of the wapiti, which roamed everywhere, the only big game animal found in them was the whitetail deer. Beyond this level alluvial bottom the ground changes abruptly to bare, rugged hills or fantastically carved and shaped Bad Lands rising on either side of the river, the ravines, coulies, creeks, and canyons twisting through them in every direction. Here there are patches of ash, cedar, pine, and occasionally other trees, but the country is very rugged, and the cover very scanty. This is the home of the mule-deer, and, in the roughest and wildest parts, of the bighorn. The absolutely clear and sharply defined line of demarkation between this rough, hilly country, flanking the river, and the alluvial river bottom, serves as an equally clearly marked line of de- 68 Deer and Antelope of North America markation between the ranges of the whitetail and the mule-deer. This belt of broken country may be only a few hundred yards in width; or it may extend for a score of miles before it changes into the open prairies, the high plains proper. As soon as these are reached, the prongbuck’s do- main begins. As the plains country is passed, and the vast stretches of mountainous region entered, the river bottoms become narrower, and the plains on which the prongbuck is found become of very limited extent, shrinking to high valleys and _ plateaus, while the mass of rugged foot-hills and mountains add immensely to the area of the mule-deer’s habitat. Given equal areas of country, of the three dif- ferent types alluded to above, that in which the mule-deer is found offers the greatest chance of success to the rifle-bearing hunter, because there is enough cover to shield him and not enough to allow his quarry to escape by stealth and hiding. On the other hand, the thick river bot- toms offer him the greatest difficulty. In conse- quence, where the areas of distribution of the dif- ferent game animals are about equal, the mule-deer disappears first before the hunter, the prong- buck next, while the whitetail holds out the best of all. I saw this frequently on the Yellowstone, the Powder, and the Little Missouri. When the “A'N'"00 ® AVKOB 269 Xi ms 02 wt 10H OQ "aq Aq (is3no0o snai09000) MVL-3LIHM 3YVMO YNOZIYVY 4O SONY 48 cS) (S3I03dSENS GNY SNNVINIDHIA S$N37100000). 4330 WV1-3LIHM JO 39Nve 77 The Whitetail Deer 69 ranchman first came into this country the mule- deer swarmed, and yielded a far more certain harvest to the hunter than did either the prong- buck or the whitetail. They were the first to be thinned out, the prongbuck lasting much better. The cowboys and small ranchmen, most of whom did not at the time have hounds, then followed the prongbuck; and this, in its turn, was killed out before the whitetail. But in other places a slight change in the conditions completely re- versed the order of destruction. In parts of Wyoming and Montana the mountainous region where the mule-deer dwelt was of such vast extent, and the few river bottoms on which the white- tail were found were so easily hunted, that the whitetail was completely exterminated throughout large districts where the mule-deer continued to abound. Moreover, in these regions the table- lands and plains upon which the prongbuck was found were limited in extent, and although the prongbuck outlasted the whitetail, it vanished long before the herds of the mule-deer had been destroyed from among the neighboring mountains, The whitetail was originally far less common in the forests of northern New England than was the moose, for in the deep snows the moose had a much better chance to escape from its brute foes and to withstand cold and starvation. But when man appeared upon the scene he followed 70 Deer and Antelope of North America the moose so much more eagerly than he followed the deer that the conditions were reversed and the moose was killed out. The moose thus vanished entirely from the Adirondacks, and almost entirely from Maine; but the excellent game laws of the latter state, and the honesty and efficiency with which they have been executed during the last twenty years, has resulted in an increase of moose during that time. During the same period the whitetail deer has increased to an even greater extent. It is doubtless now more plentiful in New York and New England than it was a quarter of a century ago. Stragglers are found in Connecti- cut, and, what is still more extraordinary, even occasionally come into wild parts of densely popu- lated little Rhode Island,— my authority for the last statement being Mr. C. Grant La Farge. Of all our wild game, the whitetail responds most quickly to the efforts for its protection, and ex- cept the wapiti, it thrives best in semi-domes- tication; in consequence, it has proved easy to preserve it, even in such places as Cape Cod in Massachusetts and Long Island in New York; while it has increased greatly in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and has more than held its own in the Adirondacks. Mr. James R. Shef- field, of New York City, in the summer of 1899, spent several weeks on a fishing trip through northern Maine. He kept count of the moose The Whitetail Deer 71 and deer he saw, and came across no less than thirty-five of the former and over five hundred and sixty of the latter; in the most lonely parts of the forest deer were found by the score, feeding in broad daylight on the edges of the ponds. Deer are still plentiful in many parts of the Alle- ghany Mountains, from Pennsylvania southward, and also in the swamps and cane-brakes of the South Atlantic and Gulf states. Where the differences in habitat and climate are so great there are many changes of habits, and some of them of a noteworthy kind. Mr. John A. Mclilhenny, of Avery’s Island, Louisiana, for- merly a lieutenant in my regiment, lives in what is still a fine game country. His plantation is in the delta of the Mississippi, among the vast marshes, north of which lie the wooded swamps. Both the marshes and the swamps were formerly literally thronged with whitetail deer, and the animals are still plentiful in them. Mr. Mclll- henny has done much deer-hunting, always using hounds. He informs me that the breeding times are unexpectedly different from those of the northern deer. In the North, in different locali- ties, the rut takes place in October or Novem- ber, and the fawns are dropped in May or June. In the Louisiana marshes around Avery’s Island the rut begins early in July and the fawns are dropped in February. In the swamps immedi- 72 Deer and Antelope of North America ately north of these marshes the dates are fully a month later. The marshes are covered with tall reeds and grass, and broken by bayous, while there are scattered over them what are called “islands” of firmer ground overgrown with tim- ber. In this locality the deer live in the same neighborhood all the year round, just as, for instance, they do on Long Island. So on the Little Missouri, in the neighborhood of my ranch, they lived in exactly the same localities through- out the entire year. Occasionally they would shift from one river bottom to another, or go a few miles up or down stream because of scarcity of food. But there was no general shifting. On the Little Missouri, in one place where they were not molested, I knew a particular doe and fawn with whose habits I became quite intimately acquainted. When the moon was full they fed chiefly by night, and spent most of the day lying in the thick brush. When there was little or no moon they would begin to feed early in the morn- ing, then take a siesta, and then — what struck me as most curious of all—would go to a little willow-bordered pool about noon to drink, feed- ing for some time both before and after drinking. After another siesta they would come out late in the afternoon and feed until dark. In the Adirondacks the deer often alter their habits completely at different seasons. Soon after The Whitetail Deer 73 the fawns are born they come down to the water’s edge, preferring the neighborhood of the lakes, but also haunting the stream banks. The next three months, during the hot weather, they keep very close to the water, and get a large proportion of their food by wading in after the lies and other aquatic plants. Where they are much hunted, they only come to the water’s edge after dark, but in re- gions where they are little disturbed they are quite as often diurnal in their habits. I have seen dozens feeding in the neighborhood of a lake, some of them two or three hundred yards out in shallow places, up to their bellies; and this after sunrise, or two or three hours before sunset. Before September the deer cease coming to the water, and go back among the dense forests and on the mountains. There is no genuine migration, as in the case of the mule- deer, from one big tract to another, and no entire desertion of any locality. But the food supply which drew the animals to the water’s edge during the summer months shows signs of exhaustion toward fall; the delicate water-plants have van- ished, the marsh-grass is dying, and the lilies are less succulent. An occasional deer still wanders along the shores or out into the lake, but most of them begin to roam the woods, eating the berries and the leaves and twig ends of the deciduous trees, and even of some of the conifers, although a whitetail is fond of grazing, especially upon the 74. Deer and Antelope of North America tips of the grass itself. I have seen moose feed- ing on the tough old lily stems and wading after them when the ice had skimmed the edges of the pool. But the whitetail has usually gone back into the woods long before freezing time. From Long Island south there is not enough snow to make the deer alter their habits in the winter. As soon as the rut is over, which in dif- ferent localities may be from October to December, whitetail are apt to band together — more apt than at any other season, although even then they are often found singly or in small parties. While nursing, the does have been thin, and at the end of the rut the bucks are gaunt, with their necks swollen and distended. From that time on bucks and does alike put on flesh very rapidly in prepa- ration for the winter. Where there is no snow, or not enough to interfere with their travelling, they continue to roam anywhere through the woods and across the natural pastures and meadows, eat- ing twigs, buds, nuts, and the natural hay which is cured on the stalk. In the northern woods they form yards during the winter. These yards are generally found in a hardwood growth which offers a supply of winter food, and consist simply of a tangle of winding trails beaten out through the snow by the inces- sant passing and repassing of the animal. The yard merely enables the deer to move along the The Whitelail Deer 75 various paths in order to obtain food. If there are many deer together, the yards may connect by interlacing paths, so that a deer can run a con- siderable distance through them. Often, however, each deer will yard by itself, as food is the prime consideration, and a given locality may only have enough to support a single animal. When the snows grow deep the deer is wholly unable to move, once the yard is left, and hence it is abso- lutely at the mercy of a man on snow-shoes, or of a cougar or a wolf, if found at such times. The man on snow-shoes can move very comfortably ; and the cougar and the wolf, although hampered by the snow, are not rendered helpless like the deer. I have myself scared a deer out of a yard, and seen it flounder helplessly in a great drift be- fore it had gone thirty rods. When I came up close it ploughed its way a very short distance through the drifts, making tremendous leaps. But as the snow was over six feet deep, so that the deer sank below the level of the surface at each jump, and yet could not get its feet on the solid ground, it became so exhausted that it fell over on its side and bleated in terror as I came up; after looking at it I passed on. Hide hunters and frontier settlers sometimes go out after the deer on snow-shoes when there is a crust, and hence this method of killing is called crusting. It is simple butchery, for the deer cannot, as the 76 Deer and Antelope of North America moose does, cause its pursuer a chase which may last days. No self-respecting man would follow this method of hunting save from the necessity of having meat. In very wild localities deer sometimes yard on the ice along the edges of lakes, eating off all the twigs and branches, whether of hardwood trees or of conifers, which they can reach. At the beginning of the rut the does flee from the bucks, which follow them by scent at full speed. The whitetail buck rarely tries to form a herd of does, though he will sometimes gather two. or three. The mere fact that his: tactics necessitate a long and arduous chase after each individual doe prevents his organizing herds as the wapiti bull does. Sometimes two or three bucks will be found strung out one behind the other, following the same doe. The bucks wage desperate battle among themselves during this season, coming together with a clash, and then pushing and straining for an hour or two at a time, with their mouths open, until the weakest gives way. As soon as one abandons the fight he flees with all possible speed, and usually escapes unscathed. While head to head there is no opportunity for a disabling thrust, but if, in the effort to retreat, the beaten buck gets caught, he may be killed. Owing to the char- acter of the antlers whitetail bucks are peculiarly THE WHITETAIL IN FLIGHT The Whitetail Deer Te apt to get them interlocked in such a fight, and if the efforts of the two beasts fail to disentangle them, both ultimately perish by starvation. I have several times come across a pair of skulls with interlocked antlers. The same thing occurs, though far less frequently, to the mule-deer and even the wapiti. The whitetail is the most beautiful and grace- ful of all our game animals when in motion. I have never been able to agree with Judge Caton that the mule-deer is clumsy and awkward in his gait. I suppose all such terms are relative. Compared to the moose or caribou the mule-deer is light and quick in his movements, and to me there is something very attractive in the poise and power with which one of the great bucks bounds off, all four legs striking the earth together and shooting the body upward and for- ward as if they were steel springs. But there can be no question as to the infinitely superior grace and beauty of the whitetail when he either trots orruns. The mule-deer and blacktail bound, as already described. The prongbuck gallops with an even gait, and so does the bighorn, when it happens to be caught on a flat; but the white- tail moves with an indescribable spring and buoy- ancy. If surprised close up, and much terrified, it simply runs away as hard as it can, at a gait not materially different from that of any other 78 Deer and Antelope of North America game animal under like circumstances, while its head is thrust forward and held down, and the tail is raised perpendicularly. But normally its mode of progression, whether it trots or gallops, is entirely unique. In trotting, the head and tail are both held erect, and the animal throws out its legs with a singularly proud and free motion, bringing the feet well up, while at every step there is an indescribable spring. In the canter or gallop the head and tail are also held erect, the flashing white brush being very conspicuous. Three or four low, long, marvellously springy bounds are taken, and then a great leap is made high in the air, which is succeeded by three or four low bounds, and then by another high leap. A whitetail going through the brush in this manner is a singularly beautiful sight. It has been my experience that they are not usually very much frightened by an ordinary slow track- hound, and I have seen a buck play along in front of one, alternately trotting and cantering, head and flag up, and evidently feeling very little fear. To my mind the chase of the whitetail, as it must usually be carried on, offers less attraction than the chase of any other kind of our large game. But this is a mere matter of taste, and such men as Judge Caton and Mr. George Bird Grinnell have placed it above all others as a game animal. Personally I feel that the chase of any The Whitetail Deer 79 animal has in it two chief elements of attraction. The first is the chance given to be in the wilder- ness; to see the sights and hear the sounds of wild nature. The second is the demand made by the particular kind of chase upon the qualities of manliness and hardihood. As regards the first, some kinds of game, of course, lead the hunter into particularly remote and wild localities; and the farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom. Yet to camp out at all implies some measure of fais delisht, “he keen; fresh air, the breath of the pine forests, the glassy stillness of the lake at sunset, the glory of sunrise among the moun- tains, the shimmer of the endless prairies, the ceaseless rustle of the cottonwood leaves, where the wagon is drawn up on the low bluff of the shrunken river —all these appeal intensely to any man, no matter what may be the game he happens to be following. But there is a wide variation, and indeed contrast, in the qualities called for in the chase itself, according as one quarry or another is sought. The qualities that make a good soldier are, in large part, the qualities that make a good hunter. Most important of all is the ability to shift for one’s self, the mixture of hardihood and resource- fulness which enables a man to tramp all day in the right direction, and, when night comes, to 80 Deer and Antelope of North America make the best of whatever opportunities for shelter and warmth may be at hand. Skill in the use of the rifle is another trait; quickness in seeing game, another; ability to take advantage of cover, yet another; while patience, endurance, keenness of observation, resolution, good nerves, and instant readiness in an emergency, are all indispensable to a really good hunter. The chase of an animal should rank according as it calls for the exercise in a high degree of a large number of these qualities. The grizzly is almost our only dangerous game, and under certain conditions shooting the grizzly calls for considerable courage on the part of the hunter. Disregarding these comparatively rare occasions, the chase of mountain game, especially the big- horn, demands more hardihood, power of endur- ance, and moral and physical soundness than any other kind of sport, and so must come first. The wapiti and mule-deer rank next, for they too must be killed by stalking as a result of long tramps over very rough ground. To kill a moose by still hunting is a feat requiring a high degree of skill, and entailing severe fatigue. When game is followed on horseback, it means that the suc- cessful hunter must ride well and boldly. The whitetail is occasionally found where it yields a very high quality of sport. But normally it lives in regions where it is extremely difficult to The Whitetail Deer 8i kill it legitimately, as the wapiti and mule-deer are killed, and yet comparatively easy to kill it under circumstances which make no demand for any particular prowess on the part of the hunter. It is far more difficult to still hunt successfully in the dense brushy timber frequented by the white- tail than in the open glades, the mountains, and the rocky hills, through which the wapiti and mule-deer wander. The difficulty arises, how- ever, because the chief requirement is stealth, noiselessness. The man who goes out into the hills for a mule-deer must walk hard and far, must be able to bear fatigue, and possibly thirst and hunger, must have keen eyes, and be a good shot. He does not need to display the extraordi- nary power of stealthy advance which is necessary to the man who would creep up to and kill a white- tail in thick timber. Now, the qualities of hardi- hood and endurance are better than the quality of stealth, and though all three are necessary in both kinds of chase, yet it is the chase of the mule- deer which most develops the former, and the chase of the whitetail which most develops the latter. When the woods are bare and there is some snow on the ground, however, still hunting the whitetail becomes not only possible, but a singularly manly and attractive kind of sport. Where the whitetail can be followed with horse and hound, the sport is of course of a very high 82. Deer and Antelope of North America order. To be able to ride through woods and over rough country at full speed, rifle or shot- gun in hand, and then to leap off and shoot at a running object, is to show that one has the quali- ties which made the cavalry of Forrest so formi- dable in the Civil War. There could be no better training for the mounted rifleman, the most effh- cient type of modern soldier. By far the easiest way to kill the whitetail is in one or other of certain methods which entail very little work or skill on the part of the hunter. The most noxious of these, crusting in the deep snows, has already been spoken of. No sports- man worthy of the name would ever follow so butcherly a method. Fire hunting must also normally be ruled out. It is always mere murder if carried on by a man who sits up at a lick, and is not much better where the hunter walks through the fields — not to mention the fact that on such a walk he is quite as apt to kill stock as to killa deer. But fire hunting from a boat, or jacking, as it is called, though it entails absolutely no skill in the hunter, and though it is, and ought to be, forbidden, as it can best be carried on in the season when nursing does are particularly apt to be the victims, nevertheless has a certain charm of its own. The first deer I ever killed, when a boy, was obtained in this way, and I have always been glad to have had the experience, The Whitetail Deer 83 though I have never been willing to repeat it. I was at the time camped out in the Adiron- dacks. Two or three of us, all boys of fifteen or six- teen, had been enjoying what was practically our first experience in camping out, having gone out with two guides, Hank Martin and Mose Sawyer, from Paul Smith’s on Lake St. Regis. My brother and cousin were fond of fishing and I was not, so I was deputed to try to bring in a deer. I had a double-barrelled 12-bore gun, French pin-fire, with which I had industriously collected “ speci- mens” ona trip to Egypt and around Oyster Bay, Long Island; except for three or four enthralling, but not oversuccessful, days, after woodcock and quail, around the latter place, I had done no game shooting. As to every healthy boy with a taste for outdoor life, the northern forests were to me a veritable land of enchantment. We were en- camped by a stream among the tall pines, and I had enjoyed everything; poling and paddling the boat, tramping through the woods, the cries of chickaree and chipmunk, of jay, woodpecker, chickadee, nuthatch, and cross-bill, which broke the forest stillness; and, above all, the great reaches of sombre woodland themselves. The heart-shaped footprints which showed where the deer had come down to drink and feed on the marshy edges of the water made my veins 84 Deer and Antelope of North America thrill; and the nights around the flickering camp- fire seemed filled with romance. My first experiment in jacking was a failure. The jack, a bark lantern, was placed upon a stick in the bow of the boat, and I sat in a cramped huddle behind it, while Mose Sawyer plied the paddle with noiseless strength and skill in the stern. I proved unable to respond even to the very small demand made upon me, for when we actually did come upon a deer I failed to see it until it ran, when I missed it; and on the way back capped my misfortune by shooting at a large owl which perched on a log projecting into the water, looking at the lantern with two glaring eyes. All next day I was miserably conscious of the smothered disfavor of my associates, and when night fell was told I would have another chance to redeem myself. This time we started across a carry, the guide carrying the light boat, and launched it in a quiet little pond about a mile off. Dusk was just turning into darkness when we reached the edge of the little lake, which was per- haps a mile long by three-quarters of a mile across, with indented shores. We did not push off for half an hour or so, until it was entirely dark ; and then for a couple of hours we saw no deer. Never- theless, I thoroughly enjoyed the ghostly, mys- terious, absolutely silent night ride over the water. The Whitetail Deer 85 Not the faintest splash betrayed the work of the paddler. The boat glided stealthily alongshore, the glare of the lantern bringing out for one mo- ment every detail of the forest growth on the banks, which the next second vanished into abso- lute blackness. Several times we saw muskrats swimming across the lane of light cut by the lan- tern through the darkness, and two or three times their sudden plunging and splashing caused my heart to leap. Once when we crossed the lake we came upon a loon floating buoyantly right out in the middle of it. It stayed until we were within ten yards, so that I could see the minute outlines of the feathers and every movement of the eye. Then it swam off, but made nocry. At last, while crossing the mouth of a bay we heard a splashing sound among the lilies inshore, which even my untrained ears recognized as different from any of the other noises we had yet heard, and a jarring motion of the paddle showed that the paddler wished me to be on the alert. Without any warning the course of the boat was suddenly changed, and I was aware that we were moving stern foremost. Then we swung around, and I could soon make out that we were going down the little bay. The forest-covered banks nar- rowed ; then the marsh at the end was lighted up, and on its hither edge, knee-deep among the water- lilies, appeared the figure of a yearling buck still 86 Deer and Antelope of North America in the red. It stood motionless, gazing at the light with a curiosity wholly unmixed with alarm, and at the shot wheeled and fell at the water’s edge. We made up our mind to return to camp that night, as it was before midnight. I carried the buck and the torch, and the guide the boat, and the mile walk over the dim trail, occasionally pitching forward across a stump or root, was a thing to be remembered. It was my first deer, and I was very glad to get it; but although only a boy, I had sense enough to realize that it was not an experience worth repeating. The paddler in such a case deserves considerable credit, but the shooter not a particle, even aside from the fact to which I have already alluded, that in too many cases such shooting results in the killing of nursing does. No matter how young a sportsman is, if he has a healthy mind, he will not long take pleasure in any method of hunting in which some- body else shows the skill and does the work so that his share is only nominal. The minute that sport is carried on on these terms it becomes a sham, and a sham is always detrimental to all who take part in it. Whitetail are comparatively easily killed with hounds, and there are very many places where this is almost the only way they can be killed at all. Formerly in the Adirondacks this method of hunting was carried on under circumstances The Whitetail Deer 87 which rendered those who took part in it objects of deserved contempt. The sportsman stood in a boat while his guides put out one or two hounds mathe: chosen ‘forest’ side, -Aiter a longer or shorter run the deer took to the water; for white- tail are excellent swimmers, and when pursued by hounds try to shake them off by wading up or down stream, or by swimming across a pond, and, if tired, come to bay in some pool or rapid. Once the unfortunate deer was in the water, the guide rowed the boat after it. If it was yet early in the season, and the deer was still in the red summer coat, he would sink when shot, and therefore the guide would usually take hold of its tail before the would-be Nimrod butchered it. If the deer was in the blue, the carcass would float, so it was not necessary to do anything quite so palpably absurd. But such sport, so far as the man who did the shooting was concerned, had not one re- deeming feature. The use of hounds has now been prohibited by law. In regions where there are no lakes, and where the woods are thick, the shooters are stationed at runways by which it is supposed the deer may pass when the hounds are after them. Under such circumstances the man has to show the skill requisite to hit the running quarry, and if he uses the rifle, this means that he must possess a certain amount of address in handling the weapon. But 88 Deer and Antelope of North America no other quality is called for, and so even this method, though often the only possible one (and it may be necessary to return to it in the Adiron- dacks) can never rank high in the eyes of men who properly appreciate what big game hunting should be. It is the usual method of killing deer on Long Island, during the three or four days of each year when they can be legally hunted. The deer are found along the south and centre of the eastern half of the island; they were nearly exter- minated a dozen years ago, but under good laws they have recently increased greatly. The exten- sive grounds of the various sportsmen’s clubs, and the forests of scrub-oak in the scantily settled inland region, give them good harbors and sanctu- aries. On the days when it is legal to shoot them, hundreds of hunters turn out from the neighbor- hood, and indeed from all the island and from New York. On such a day it is almost impossible to get any work done; for the sport is most demo- cratic, and is shared by everybody. The hunters choose their position before dawn, lying in lines wherever deer are likely to pass, while the hounds are turned into every patch of thick cover. A most lively day follows, the fusillade being terrific ; some men are invariably shot, and a goodly num- ber of deer are killed, mostly by wily old hunters who kill ducks and quail for a living in the fall. When the horse is used together with the aqaLVM OL ONINOD Mead VINIONIA The Whitetail Deer 89 hounds the conditions are changed. To ride a horse over rough country after game always implies hardihood and good horsemanship, and therefore makes the sport a worthy one. In very open country,—4in such country, for instance, as the whitetail formerly frequented both in Texas and the Indian Territory,—the horseman could ride at the tail of the pack until the deer was fairly run down. But nowadays I know of no place where this is possible, for the whitetail’s haunts are such as to make it impracticable for any rider to keep directly behind the hounds. What he must do is to try to cut the game off by riding from point to point. He then leaps off the horse and watches his chance for a shot. This is the way in which Mr. Mclllhenny has done most of his deer hunting, in the neighbor- hood of his Louisiana plantation. Around my ranch I very rarely tried to still- hunt whitetail, because it was always easier to get mule-deer or prongbuck, if I had time to go off for an all-day’s hunt. Occasionally, however, we would have at the ranch hounds, usually of the old black-and-tan southern type, and then if we needed meat, and there was not time for a hunt back in the hills, we would turn out and hunt one or two of the river bottoms with these hounds. If I rode off to the prairies or the hills I went alone, but if the quarry was a whitetail, our chance go Deer and Antelope of North America of success depended upon our having a sufficient number of guns to watch the different passes and runways. Accordingly, my own share of the chase was usually limited to the fun of listening to the hounds, and of galloping at headlong speed from one point where I thought the deer would not pass to some other, which, as a matter of fact, it did not pass either. The redeeming feature of the situation was that if I did get a shot, I almost always got my deer. Under ordinary circum- stances to merely wound a deer is worse than not hitting it; but when there are hounds along they are certain to bring the wounded animal to bay, and so on these hunts we usually got venison. Of course, I occasionally did get a whitetail when I was alone, whether with the hounds or without them. There were whitetail on the very bottom on which the ranch-house stood, as well as on the bottom opposite, and on those to the right and left up and down stream. Occasionally I have taken the hounds out alone, and then as they chevied the whitetail around the bottom, have endeavored by rapid running on foot or on horseback to get to some place from which I could obtain a shot. The deer knew perfectly well that the hounds could not overtake them, and they would usually do a great deal of sneak- ing round and round through the underbrush and cottonwoods before they finally made up their The Whitetail Deer g1 minds to leave the bottom. On one occasion a buck came sneaking down a game trail through the buck brush where I stood, going so low that I could just see the tips of his antlers, and though I made desperate efforts I was not able to get into a position from which I could obtain a shot. On another occasion, while I was looking intently into a wood through which I was certain a deer would pass, it deliberately took to the open ground behind me, and I did not see it until it was just vanishing. Normally, the end of my efforts was that the deer went off and the hounds disappeared after it, not to return for six or eight hours. Once or twice things favored me; I happened to take the right turn or go in the right direction, and the deer happened to blunder past me; and then I returned with venison for supper. Two or three times I shot deer about nightfall or at dawn, in the immediate neighborhood of the ranch, obtaining them by sneaking as noiselessly as possible along the cattle trails through the brush and timber, or by slipping along the edge of the river bank. Several times I saw deer while I was sitting on the piazza or on the door- step of the ranch, and on one occasion I stepped back into the house, got the rifle, and dropped the animal from where I stood. On yet other occasions I obtained whitetail which lived not on the river bottoms but among 92 Deer and Antelope of North America the big patches of brush and timber in the larger creeks. When they were found in such country I hunted them very much as I hunted the mule- deer, and usually shot one when I was expecting as much to see a mule-deer as a whitetail. When the game was plentiful I would often stay on my horse until the moment of obtaining the shot, especially if it was in the early morning or late evening. My method then was to ride slowly and quietly down the winding valleys and across the spurs, hugging the bank, so that if deer were feeding in the open, I would get close up before either of us saw the other. Sometimes the deer would halt for a moment when it saw me, and sometimes it would bound instantly away. In either case my chance lay in the speed with which I could jump off the horse and take my shot. Even in favorable localities this method was of less avail with whitetail than mule-deer, because the former were so much more apt to skulk. As soon as game became less plentiful my hunting had to be done on foot. My object was to be on the hunting-ground by dawn, or else to stay out there until it grew too dark to see the sights of my rifle. Often all I did was to keep moving as quietly as possible through likely ground, ever on the alert for the least trace of game; sometimes I would select a lookout and The Whitetail Deer 93 carefully scan a likely country to see if I could not detect something moving. On one occasion I ob- tained an old whitetail buck by the simple exercise of patience. I had twice found him in a broad basin, composed of several coulies, all running down to form the head of a big creek, and all of them well timbered. He dodged me on both occasions, and I made up my mind that I would spend a whole day in watching for him from a little natural ambush of sage brush and cedar on a high point which overlooked the entire basin. I crept up to my ambush with the utmost caution early in the morning, and there I spent the entire day, with my lunch and a water-bottle, continually scanning the whole region most carefully with the glasses. The day passed less monotonously than it sounds, for every now and then I would catch a glimpse of wild life; once a fox, once a coyote, and once a badger; while the little chip- munks had a fine time playing all around me. At last, about mid-afternoon, I suddenly saw the buck come quietly out of the dense thicket in which he had made his midday bed, and deliberately walk up a hillside and lie down in a thin clump of ash where the sun could get at him—for it was in September, just before the rut began. There was no chance of stalking him in the place he had chosen, and all I could do was to wait. It was nearly sunset before he moved again, except that 94 Deer and Antelope of North America I occasionally saw him shift his head. Then he got up and after carefully scrutinizing all the neighborhood, moved down into a patch of fairly thick brush, where I could see him standing and occasionally feeding, all the time moving slowly up the valley. I now slipped most cautiously back and trotted nearly a mile until I could come up behind one of the ridges bounding the valley in which he was. The wind had dropped, and it was almost absolutely still when I crawled flat on my face to the crest, my hat in my left hand, my rifle in my right. There was a big sage bush con- veniently near, and under this I peered. There was a good deal of brush in the valley below, and if I had not known that the buck was there, I would never have discovered him. As it was, I watched for a quarter of an hour, and had about made up my mind that he must have gone somewhere else, when aslight movement nearly below me attracted my attention, and I caught a glimpse of him, nearly three hundred yards off, moving quietly along by the side of a little dry watercourse which was right in the middle of the brush. I waited until he was well past, and then again slipped back with the utmost care, and ran on until I was nearly opposite the head of the coulie, when I again approached the ridge line. Here there was no sage brush, only tufts of tall grass, which were stirring in the little breeze which had just sprung The Whitetail Deer 95 up —fortunately in the right direction. Taking advantage of a slight inequality in the soil, I managed to get behind one of these tufts, and almost immediately saw the buck. Toward the head of the coulie the brush had become scanty and low, and he was now walking straight for- ward, evidently keeping a sharp lookout. The sun had just set. His course took him past me at a distance of eighty yards. When directly opposite I raised myself on my elbows, drawing up the rifle, which I had shoved ahead of me. The movement of course caught his eye at once; he halted for one second to look around and see what it was, and during that second I pulled the trigger. Away he went, his white flag switching desperately, and though he galloped over the hill, I felt he was mine. However, when I got to the top of the rise over which he had gone, I could not see him, and as there was a deep though narrow coulie filled with brush on the other side, I had a very ugly feeling that I might have lost him, in spite of the quantity of blood he had left along his trail. It was getting dark, and I plunged quickly into the coulie. Usually a wounded deer should not be followed until it has had time to grow stiff, but this was just one of the cases where the rule would have worked badly; in the first place, because darkness was coming on, and in the next place, because the animal was certain to die 96 Deer and Antelope of North America shortly, and all that I wanted was to see where he was. I followed his trail into the coulie, and expected to find that he had turned down it, but a hurried examination in the fading light showed me that he had taken the opposite course, and I scrambled hastily out on the other side, and trotted along, staring into the brush, and now and then shouting or throwing in a clod of earth. When nearly at the head there was a crackling in the brush, and out burst the wounded buck. He disappeared behind a clump of elms, but he had a hard hill to go up, and the effort was too much for him. When I next saw him he had halted, and before I could fire again down he came. On another occasion I spied a whole herd of whitetail feeding in a natural meadow, right out in the open, in mid-afternoon, and was able to get up so close that when I finally shot a yearling buck (which was one of the deer farthest away from me, there being no big buck in the outfit) the remaining deer, all does and fawns, scattered in every direction, some galloping right past me in their panic. Once or twice I was able to per- form a feat of which I had read, but in which I scarcely believed. This was to creep up to a deer while feeding in the open, by watching when it shook its tail, and then remaining motionless. I cannot say whether the habit is a universal one, The Whitetail Deer 97 but on two occasions at least I was able thus to creep up to the feeding deer, because before lift- ing its head it invariably shook its tail, thereby warning me to stay without moving until it had lifted its head, scrutinized the landscape, and again lowered its head to graze. The eyesight of the whitetail, as compared with that of the prong- horn antelope, is poor. It notes whatever is in motion, but it seems unable to distinguish clearly anything that is not in motion. On the occa- sions in question no antelope that I have ever seen would have failed to notice me at once and to take alarm. But the whitetail, although it scrutinized me narrowly, while I lay motionless with my head toward it, seemed in each case to think that I must be harmless, and after a while it would go on feeding. In one instance the ani- mal fed over a ridge and walked off before I could get a shot; in the other instance I killed it. CHATTER..1¥, THE PRONGHORN ANTELOPE Tue prongbuck or pronghorn antelope, known throughout its range simply as antelope, is a very extraordinary creature, being the only hollow-horn ruminant known which annually sheds its horns as deer do their antlers. Of course, only the horn sheaths are shed, leaving underneath the soft and bristle-haired new horn already partially formed on the bone cores. The shedding takes place in the late fall. After a few days the new horns harden, and in consequence there is only a very brief time during which any signs are left of the shedding. This is the reason why the fact was so long doubted. The hair of the antelope is very peculiar, being stiff, coarse, and springy. It is rather loosely attached to the skin, so that the hide is not valuable. When the animal is alarmed or excited it has the power of erecting all the brilliantly white hair on the rump, so as to greatly add to its already existing conspicu- ousness. The prongbuck is an animal of the open plains. In the old days it was found as soon as 98 The Pronghorn Antelope 99 the westward-moving traveller left the green bot- tom-lands of the Mississippi, and from thence across to the dry, open valleys of California, and northward to Canada and southward into Mexico. It has everywhere been gradually thinned out, and has vanished altogether from what were formerly the extreme easterly and westerly limits of its range. In dealing with the mule-deer I have already explained how unequal the rates of exter- mination of the different kinds of big game have been in different localities. Each kind of big game has had its own peculiar habitat in which it throve best, and each has also been found more or less plentifully in other regions where the cir- cumstances were less favorable; and in these comparatively unfavorable regions it early tends to disappear before the advance of man. In con- sequence, where the ranges of the different game animals overlap and are intertwined, one will dis- appear first in one locality, and another will dis- appear first where the conditions are different. Thus the whitetail deer had thrust forward along the very narrow river bottoms into the domain of the mule-deer and the prongbuck among the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, and in these places it was exterminated from the narrow strips which it inhabited long before the mule-deer vanished from the high hills, or the prongbuck from the great open plains. But along great L. of C. 100 Deer and Antelope of North America portions of the Missouri there are plenty of white- tails yet left in the river bottoms, while the mule- deer that once dwelt in the broken hills behind them, and the prongbuck which lived on the prairie just back of these bluffs, have both disap- peared. In the same way the mule-deer and the prongbuck are often found almost intermin- gled through large regions in which plains, hills, and mountains alternate. If such a region is mainly mountainous, but contains a few valleys and tablelands, the prongbuck is sure to vanish from the latter before the mule-deer vanishes from the broken country. But if the region is one primarily of plains, with here and there rows of rocky hills in which the mule-deer is found, the latter is killed off long before the prongbuck can be hunted out of the great open stretches. The same is true of the pronghorn and the wapiti. The size and value of the wapiti make it an object of eager persecution on the part of hunters. But as it can live in the forest-clad fastnesses of the Rockies, into which settlement does not go, it outlasts over great regions the pronghorn, whose abode is easily penetrated by sheep and cattle men. Under anything like even conditions, however, the prongbuck, of course, outlasts the wapiti. This was the case on the Little Missouri. On that stream the bighorn also outlasted the wapiti. In 1881 wapiti were still much more plentiful NS f \“ RGGI & QEE f w OPE IN 1900 L C,_Hart Merriam RANGE OF/ ANTE on BORMAY & C2.,N.¥o 7 Ne 0 Prat im ae ==? “ * 05 115° sy Dr. L. of C. The Pronghorn Antelope 101 than bighorns. Within the next decade they had almost totally disappeared, while the bighorn was still to be found; I shot one and saw others in 1893, at which time I had not authentic in- formation of a single wapiti remaining anywhere on the river in my neighborhood, although it is possible that one or two still lurked in some out-of-the-way recess. In Colorado at one time the bighorn was killed out much more rapidly than the wapiti; but of late years in that state the rapidity of destruction of the latter has in- creased far beyond what is true in the case of the former. I mention these facts partly because they are of interest in themselves, but chiefly because they tend to explain the widely different opinions ex- pressed by competent observers about what seem superficially to be similar facts. It cannot be too often repeated that allowance must be made for the individual variability of the traits and charac- ters of animals of the same species, and especially of the same species under different circumstances and in different localities; and allowance must also be made for the variability of the individual factor in the observers themselves. Many seem- ingly contradictory observations of the habits of deer, wapiti, and prongbuck will be found in books by the best hunters. Take such questions as the keenness of sight of the deer as compared with 102 Deer and Antelope of North America the prongbuck, and of the pugnacity of the wapiti, both actual and relative, and a wide difference of opinion will be found in three such standard works as Dodge’s “ The Hunting-grounds of the Great West,” Caton’s “ Deer and Antelope of America,” and the contributions of Mr. Grinnell to the “ Cen- tury Book of Sports.” Sometimes the difference will be in mere matters of opinion, as, for instance, in the belief as to the relative worth of the sport furnished by the chase of the different creatures ; but sometimes there is a direct conflict of fact. Colonel Dodge, for instance, has put it upon record that the wapiti is an exceedingly gentle animal, less dangerous than a whitetail or blacktail buck in a close encounter, and that the bulls hardly ever fight among themselves. My own experience leads me to traverse in the most emphatic manner every one of these conclusions, and all hunters whom I have met feel exactly as I do; yet no one would question for a moment Colonel Dodge’s general competency as an observer. In the same way Mr. Grinnell has a high opinion of the deer’s keenness of sight. Judge Caton absolutely disagrees with him, and my own experience tends to agree with that of the Judge — at least to the extent of plac- ing the deer’s vision far below that of the prong- buck and even that of the bighorn, and only on a par with that of the wapiti. Yet Mr. Grinnell is an unusually competent observer, whose opinion The Pronghorn Antelope 103 on any such subject is entitled to unqualified re- spect. Difference in habits may be due simply to dif- ference of locality, or to the need of adaptation to new conditions. The prongbuck’s habits about migration offer examples of the former kind of difference. Over portions of its range the prong- buck is not migratory at all. In other parts the migrations are purely local. In yet other regions the migrations are continued for great distances, immense multitudes of the animals going to and fro in the spring and fall along well-beaten tracks. I know of one place in New Mexico where the pronghorn herds are tenants of certain great plains throughout the entire year. I know another region in northwestern Colorado where the very few prongbucks still left, though they shift from valley to valley, yet spend the whole year in the same stretch of rolling, barren country. On the Little Missouri, however, during the eighties and early nineties, there was a very distinct though usually local migration. Before the Black Hills had been settled they were famous wintering places for the antelope, which swarmed from great distances to them when cold weather approached; those which had summered east of the Big Missouri actually swam the river in great herds, on their journey to the Hills. The old hunters around my ranch in- sisted that formerly the prongbuck had for the 104 Deer and Antelope of North America most part travelled from the Little Missouri Bad Lands into the Black Hills for the winter. When I was ranching on that river, however, this custom no longer obtained, for the Black Hills were too well settled, and the herds of prong- buck that wintered there were steadily diminish- ing in numbers. At that time, from 1883 to 1896, the seasonal change in habits, and shift of posi- tion, of the prongbucks were well marked. As soon as the new grass sprang they appeared in great numbers upon the plains. They were espe- cially fond of the green, tender blades that came up where the country had been burned over. If the region had been devastated by prairie fires in the fall, the next spring it was certain to contain hundreds and thousands of prongbucks. All through the summer they remained out on these great open plains, coming to drink at the little pools in the creek beds, and living where there was no shelter of any kind. As winter approached they began to gather in bands. Some of these bands apparently had regular wintering places to the south of us, in Pretty Buttes and beyond; and close to my ranch, at the crossing of the creek called Beaver, there were certain trails which these antelope regularly travelled, northward in the spring and southward in the fall. But other bands would seek out places in the Bad Lands near by, vathering together on some succession of plateaus The Pronghorn Antelope 10S which were protected by neighboring hills from the deep drifts of snow. Here they passed the winter, on short commons, it is true (they graze, not browsing like deer), but without danger of perishing in the snow-drifts. On the other hand, if the skin hunters discovered such a wintering place, they were able to butcher practically the entire band, if they so desired, as the prongbucks were always most reluctant to leave such a chosen ground. Normally the prongbuck avoids both broken ground and timber. It is a queer animal, with keen senses, but with streaks of utter folly in its character. Time and again I have known bands rush right by me, when I happened to surprise them feeding near timber or hills, and got between them and the open plains. The animals could have escaped without the least difficulty if they had been willing to go into the broken country, or through even a few rods of trees and brush; and yet they preferred to rush madly by me at close range, in order to get out to their favorite haunts. But nowadays there are certain localities where the prongbucks spend a large part of their time in the timber or in rough, hilly country, feeding and bringing up their young in such localities. Typically, however, the prongbuck is_pre- eminently a beast of the great open plains, eat- ing their harsh, dry pasturage, and trusting to its 106 Deer and Antelope of North America own keen senses and speed for its safety. All the deer are fond of skulking; the whitetail pre- eminently so. The prongbuck, on the contrary, never endeavors to elude observation. Its sole aim is to be able to see its enemies, and it cares nothing whatever about its enemies seeing it. Its coloring is very conspicuous, and is rendered still more so by its habit of erecting the white hair on its rump. It has a very erect carriage, and when it thinks itself in danger it always endeavors to get on some crest or low hill from which it can look all about. The great bulging eyes, situated at the base of the horns, scan the horizon far and near like twin telescopes. They pick out an object at such a distance that it would entirely escape the notice of a deer. When sus- picious, they have a habit of barking, uttering a sound something like “kau,” and repeating it again and again, as they walk up and down, endeavoring to find out if danger lurks in the unusual object. They are extremely curious, and in the old days it was often possible to lure them toward the hunter by waving a red handkerchief to and fro on a stick, or even by lying on one’s back and kicking the legs. _ Nowadays, however, there are very few localities indeed in which they are sufficiently unsophisticated to make it worth while trying these time-honored tricks of the long- vanished trappers and hunters, The Pronghorn Antelope 107 Along the Little Missouri the fawns, sometimes one and sometimes two in number, were dropped in May or early in June. At that time the ante- lope were usually found in herds which the mother did not leave until she was about to give birth to the fawn. During the first few days the fawn’s safety is to be found only in its not attracting attention. During this time it normally lies per- fectly flat on the ground, with its head outstretched, and makes no effort to escape. While out on the spring round-up I have come across many of these fawns. Once, in company with several cowboys, I was riding behind a bunch of cattle which, as we hurried them, spread out in open order ahead of us. Happening to cast down my eyes I saw an antelope fawn directly ahead of me. The bunch of cattle had passed all around it, but it made not the slightest sign, not even when I halted, got off my pony, and took it up in my arms. It was useless to take it to camp and try to rear it, and so I speedily put it down again. Scanning the neighborhood I saw the doe hang- ing about some half a mile off, and when I looked back from the next divide I could see her gradu- ally drawing near to the fawn. If taken when very young, antelope make cun- ning and amusing pets, and I have often seen them around the ranches. There was one in the ranch of a Mrs. Blank who had a station on the 108 Deer and Antelope of North America Deadwood stage line some eighteen years ago. She was a great worker in buckskin, and I got her to make me the buckskin shirt I still use. There was an antelope fawn that lived at the house, wandering wherever it wished; but it would not permit me to touch it. As I sat in- side the house it would come in and hop up on a chair, looking at me sharply all the while. No matter how cautiously I approached, I could never put my hand upon it, as at the last moment it would spring off literally as quick as a bird would fly. One of my neighbors on the Little Missouri, Mr. Howard Eaton, had at one time upon his ranch three little antelope whose foster mother was a sheep, and who were really absurdly tame. I was fond of patting them and of giving them crusts, and the result was that they followed me about so closely that I had to be always on the lookout to see that I did not injure them. They were on excellent terms with the dogs, and were very playful. It was a comic sight to see them skipping and hopping about the old ewe when anything happened to alarm her and she started off at a clumsy waddle. Nothing could: surpass the tameness of the antelope that are now under Mr. Hornaday’s care at the Bronx Zoological Garden in New York. The last time that I visited the garden some repairs were being made inside the antelope enclosure, and a dozen work- The Pronghorn Antelope 109 men had gone in to make them. The antelope regarded the workmen with a friendliness and curiosity untempered by the slightest touch of apprehension. When the men took off their coats the little creatures would nose them over to see if they contained anything edible, and they would come close up and watch the men plying the pick with the utmost interest. Mr. Hornaday took us inside, and they all came up in the most friendly manner. One or two of the bucks would put their heads against our legs and try to push us around, but not roughly. Mr. Hornaday told me that he was having great difficulty, exactly as with the mule-deer, in acclimatizing the antelope, especially as the food was so different from what they were accustomed to in their native haunts. The wild fawns are able to run well a few days after they are born. They then accompany the mother everywhere. Sometimes she joins a band of others; more often she stays alone with her fawn, and perhaps one of the young of the previ- ous year, until the rut begins. Of all game the prongbuck seems to me the most excitable during the rut. The males run the does much as do the bucks of the mule and whitetail deer. If there are no does present, I have sometimes watched a buck run to and fro by himself. The first time I saw this I was greatly interested, and could form no idea of what the buck was doing. He was by 110 Deer and Antelope of North America a creek bed in a slight depression or shallow val- ley, and was grazing uneasily. After a little while he suddenly started and ran just as hard as he could, off in a straight direction, nearly away from me. I thought that somehow or other he had discovered my presence ; but he suddenly wheeled and came back to the original place, still running at his utmost speed. Then he halted, moved about with the white hairs on his rump outspread, and again dashed off at full speed, halted, wheeled, and came back. Two or three times he did this, and let me get up very close to him before he dis- covered me. I was too much interested in what he was doing to desire to shoot him. In September, sometimes not earlier than Octo- ber, the big bucks begin to gather the does into harems. Each buck is then constantly on the watch to protect his harem from outsiders, and steal another doe if he can get a chance. I have seen a comparatively young buck who had ap- propriated a doe, hustle her hastily out of the country as soon as he saw another antelope in the ‘neighborhood; while, on the other hand, a big buck, already with a good herd of does, will do his best to appropriate any other that comes in sight. The bucks fight fearlessly but harmlessly among themselves, locking their horns and then pushing as hard as they can. Although their horns are not very formidable The Pronghorn Antelope 111 weapons, they are bold little creatures, and if given a chance will stand at bay before either hound or coyote.