Whitetailed Deer 99 



resent with a blow any attempted liberties, but I know of no 

 reason for supposing that, in a wild state, the buck would go 

 out of his way to injure his offspring. 



The mother is ready at all times to render what defence 

 she can to her fawn; and, unless hopelessly overmatched, she 

 is wonderfully efficient. Her readiness to run to her young at 

 their call of distress is (or was) often turned to unfair account 

 by the hunters in the South-west. They manufactured a reed 

 that imitated the fawn's bleat, and thus brought within gun- 

 shot not only the anxious mother, but sometimes also the 

 prowling Cougar and Lynx. 



Natural questions that arise are: Does the mother never 

 forget where she hid her young .? Can she come back to the 

 very spot in the unvaried woods, even when driven a mile or 

 two away by some dreaded enemy ? 



In the vast majority of cases the mother's memory of 

 the place enables her to come back to the very spot. Some- 

 times it happens that an enemy forces the little one to run 

 and hide elsewhere, while the mother is away. In such 

 cases, she sets to work to ransack the neighbourhood, to 

 search the ground and the wind for a helpful scent, listening 

 intently for every sound. A rustle or a squeak is enough 

 to make her dash excitedly to the quarter whence it came. 

 It is probable, though I have no conclusive proof, that now 

 she calls for the fawn, as does a cow or a sheep whose young 

 are missing. 



In most cases her hearty endeavours succeed. But there 

 is evidence that sometimes the end is a tragedy — that the 

 fawns, like the children of the story, are lost in the woods. 



The Moose and the Wapiti may hide their young two or 

 three days, the Antelope for a week; but the Whitetail fawns 

 are usually left in their first covert for a month or more. 



At this age their rich brown coats are set off with pure 

 white spots, like a brown log sprinkled with snow-drops, or 

 flecked with spots of sunlight. This makes a colour scheme 



