94 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



near Portland, Me., five miles from shore, and another"' of 

 one taken a mile and a half from Sachuest Point, R. I., as it 

 was swimming at full speed away from land. In regions where 

 there is plenty of open water the Deer have little to fear from 

 Wolves and nothing at all from unaided dogs. In summer a 

 Deer swims low in the water, showing little more than its head; 

 and when shot it usually sinks. In the late fall it swims much 

 higher, showing the back. This is due partly to the recently 

 acquired fat, which has added more to its bulk than to its weight, 

 but chiefly to the growth of the coat, each hair of which is a 

 little barrel of air adding its flotation to the Deer. As Merriam 

 says:"^ "When the blue coat, which grows very rapidly, is an 

 inch in length, it will, as a rule, float the Deer that carries it, and 

 this length is generally obtained about the first of October." 



TRACKS The tracks that are shown in Fig. 35 were drawn on the 



SIGN sandy shore of Big Dam Lake, forty miles from Kippewa, 

 Que., September 15, 1906, and show those of the buck, the 

 doe, and the fawn. The tracks of a pig (Fig. 7,7^) and of a 

 sheep (Fig. 31) are shown in contradiction of the statement that 

 such may easily be mistaken for Deer tracks (Figs. 32, 34), 

 even by the expert. 



wAL-^ In the mating season the European Red-deer makes what 



is known as a ^'soiling pit.'' In some open glade he digs a 

 hole in which the rain collects. This he paws and stirs till it 

 becomes what our backwoodsmen would call *'a regular dope." 

 With the mud he besmears himself plentifully, rolling and 

 grovelling in it like a hog that has only partly learned how to 

 wallow. The habit is ascribed to both Moose and Wapiti, and 

 is also seen to some extent in the Whitetailed Deer. What 

 pleasure it gives the animal or what purpose it serves no one 

 knows; but every hunter who finds one of these odoriferous 

 cesspools of the forest knows at once that the bucks have begun 

 to bestir themselves for the good of the next generation. 



^'Forest and Stream, April 4, 1896, p. 272. 

 *^Mam. Adir., 1884, p. 130. 



LOWS 



