THE PLANT-EATERS OF NORTH AMERICA. 683 



summer, except in those regions, as in many parts of the South, where 

 the deer can gain access to the fields of young wheat, oats, or other 

 grain. In the early autumn it adds berries of various sorts to its bill 

 of fare, and later still nuts and acorns ; and in winter it feeds upon 

 almost all kinds of buds and tender twigs, as well as upon various 

 kinds of the more hardy herbs. The males are in excellent condition 

 from August to November, and the females from November to Janu- 

 ary. The antlers are fully grown in July or August, and remain till 

 the next January, when they are shed. The males engage in severe 



Fig. 3. The Virginia Deer (Cervus Yirginianus). 



contests with one another, and in some of these contests they get their 

 horns or antlers interlocked, so that they cannot separate them, and 

 the combatants at length perish from starvation and exhaustion. In 

 some cases the antlers are interlocked so firmly that even a strong 

 man cannot separate them, and Audubon mentions one case where 

 three pairs of antlers were thus united. The flesh of this deer, as is 

 well known, is tender and juicy, and has an excellent flavor. This 

 fact, and the love of the excitement of the chase, have caused this ani- 

 mal to be extensively hunted. At the same time our forests have been 

 disappearing, thus affording them less protection, so that the numbers 

 of the common deer are far less than twenty-five years ago. It will 

 require rigid legislation to keep these animals from entirely disap- 

 pearing from many parts of our country where a deer-hunt is still pos- 

 sible. 



Next to the moose, the wapiti or American elk ( Cervus Canaden- 

 sis) is the largest deer in North America. It is nearly as large as a 

 horse, and its horns are the most magnificent to be found in the whole 

 deer family, being five or six feet long and much branched. In some 

 cases antlers of this species have been secured which were so long 

 that when standing on their tips a man could walk upright through 



