Virginia Deer 



learn from their appearance just how long since the deer that 

 made them preceded you; when in wet places the water has 

 not yet settled in the foot-prints, it is time to look sharply ahead 

 among the trees for a glimpse of your quarry. Deer usually wander 

 about feeding all the morning, following a more or less direct 

 course according to the lay of the land. Along the foot of a ridge by 

 the edge of a swamp is a favourite feeding ground of theirs, and 

 they like to trace the windings of a trout brook between low hills. 

 In the middle of the day they lie down to rest in the lee of 

 a thick clump of evergreen, where they can watch their tracks for 

 any enemy that may be following them. Before lying down they 

 make a practice of going back a little distance on their tracks 

 to make sure that they are not followed. So when you have 

 been tracking them all the morning and toward noon perceive 

 three tracks ahead of you in place of one, you may feel pretty 

 certain the deer you are after is resting in some thick clump not 

 many rods ahead. But unless there is snow on the ground to 

 enable you to see the tracks a long way in front of you, you 

 will hardly notice the back tracks before you have come so close 

 as to alarm your game and send it flying off among the trees, 

 showing you just the white flash of his tail as he disappears. 

 If not badly frightened, however, he will probably not run very 

 far before stopping to look back at you, choosing, if possible, a 

 thickly wooded knoll or a hummock at the edge of the swamp 

 and here you may perhaps get a shot at him if you will make 

 a slight detour and approach him from one side; to follow him 

 directly would be useless, for he is earnestly watching his back 

 tracks, and is certain to see you long before you can possibly see him. 



Varieties of the Virginia Deer 



One or other form of Virginia or white-tailed deer is found 

 in nearly every part of the United Sates. They are all geographic 

 variations of the same stock and they exhibit differences in direct pro- 

 portion to the effect produced by the peculiar climate and surround- 

 ings in which they live. Whether they shade gradually into one 

 another as their ranges approach, or whether differentiation has gone 

 further and they are to be regarded as different "species " are ques- 

 tions that have not yet been definitely settled in many cases. Without 



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