180 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1896. 



main divisions of the State, it is surprising how effectually the Vir- 

 ginia Deer has been exterminated over the greater part of Tennes- 

 see. This is probably owing largely to the number of negroes and 

 " poor whites," who infest these districts, and spend their lives in 

 the uncertain pursuit of hunting, rather than in earning an honest 

 livelihood. 



A few remain in wilder parts of the Cumberland table-land, but 

 even there they are rarely taken. I found their fresh track on the 

 bluffs near Sawyer's Springs. Mr. Miles refers to them in his 

 vicinity as follows : " In my county, [Haywood] as far as I can 

 gather, there are about 20 [wild ones] now alive — one buck was 

 killed in February and a doe in August. ^ ^ ^ We are mak- 

 ing a desperate effort to restore this animal, and I think, with the 

 sentiment now prevailing, will make a success of it." Mr. Rags- 

 dale, proprietor of Cloudland Hotel, thinks the deer have been ex- 

 tirpated from Roan Mountain and that one would have to go many 

 miles into the mountain valleys of North Carolina to find them. 



Mr. A. B. Wingfield, in Forest and Stream, for December 14th, 

 1894, states " The Cumberland Mountain range has been almost 

 entirely depleted of its stock of deer. Would you believe it if I 

 were to tell you that last year there were 248 carcasses of deer 

 shipped from the small town of Crossville in Cumberland County 

 * ^- * I am glad to report that the last Tennessee legislature 

 passed a law forbidding the killing of deer in five of our mountain 

 counties (Cumberland, Claiborne, Scott, Morgan and Anderson) 

 for a period of five years." 



Genus CERVUS Linnseus. 

 4. Cervus canadensis (Erxl.). Wapiti or Elk. 



At the beginning of the present century, this noble animal was 

 probably a visitant to every county in the State. It not only 

 abounded in the high passes and coves of the southern Alleghenies; 

 but, associated with the buflfalo, it frequented the licks near the 

 present site of Nashville, gave its name to some of the rivers and 

 creeks of the southern counties of Middle Tennessee, and roamed 

 through the glades and canebrakes of the Mississippi bottoms. The 

 redoubtable Crockett, during his residence in Obion and Dyer 

 Counties, gives repeated instances of the occurrence of the Wapiti 

 in the bottom lands, and it formed no small part of his larder in 

 the period between the years 1820 and 1830. 



