Whitetailed Deer 97 



were present at Goose Creek when an immense one, killed 

 by J. W. Audubon, was ascertained, on being opened, to con- 

 tain 4 large and well-formed fawns. The average number of 

 fawns in Carolina is 2, and the cases where 3 are produced are 

 nearly as numerous as those in which the young does have 

 only I at the birth." 



Nevertheless, I have never heard of anyone seeing a doe 

 actually accompanied by 4 fawns, or even 3. This recalls a 

 fact that I have often noted: that in mammals the average 

 number of young found in embryo is greater than the average 

 found with the mother, even just after birth. 



Audubon and Bachman say^^ that the doe does not produce 

 till she is two years old ; that is, the first fawn is born about 

 the mother's second birthday. But A. N. Cheney has de- 

 scribed^^ a remarkable case of a captive "female fawn born in 

 1895, that gave birth to a fawn of her own in 1896." I saw 

 a case of this kind at Meeker, Colorado, in 1901. Dr. J. W. 

 Collins showed me there a fifteen-months-old filly which, 

 though not yet weaned, had produced the night before an 

 abortive foetus, which I examined carefully. It was apparently 

 at three months' development. Dr. Collins knew nothing of 

 its generation. Possibly this, as well as that above mentioned, 

 was a case of foetus in fceto. 



Another strange instance is thus given by E. A. Weather- 

 bee,^* of Lincoln, Me.: 



"Two years ago, in June, I went with a friend trout fishing 

 on the Madunkeunk,a stream eight miles from here. At a place 

 where the ground had been unusually soft by recent rains I saw 

 some large Moose tracks, which were punched in to the depth 

 of a foot. I told the boys to notice the tracks and passed on. 

 One of the party called me to come back and see the Deer he 

 had found. I had stepped directly over a track which contained 

 a small fawn. It was dead and lay curled up in the track like a 

 kitten. We thought it could not be over one day old, perhaps 

 not that, and had either been dropped by the doe directly into 



*^Ibid. *^ Forest and Stream, September 12, 1896, p. 203. 



** Recreation Magazine, March, 1900, p. 205. 



