110 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



TAMA- Experience shows that young Whitetails, taken after they 



have begun to run with the mother, are so fully possessed of the 

 feral nature that they remain wild and distrustful for the rest 

 of their days in spite of all efforts to tame them; but that if 

 caught during the hiding period of infancy, they are as easy to 

 tame as puppies. Nevertheless, those who are tempted by 

 opportunity would be warned that a Deer is the most treacher- 

 ous of pets. The only change that domestication makes in 

 them is to rob them of their fear of man. Their fierce, comba- 

 tive disposition remains and is ever ready to break out. Not 

 only children and women but many strong men have met with 

 tragic ends from some tame Deer — doe as often as buck — 

 that was supposed to be the gentlest, loveliest creature on 

 earth. 



Merriam says:" "Both my father and myself have been 

 knocked flat on the ground by being struck in the abdomen by 

 the fore-feet of a very harmless looking doe." 

 TREACH- I recollect a case that happened near Lindsay, Ont., dur- 



PETs ing my early life. A tame Deer was confined in a certain 

 orchard. The grandmother from the adjoining farm, paying 

 a call, chanced to take a short cut through that orchard. 

 Hours afterward they found the shapeless remains of her body, 

 cut and trampled to rags by the feet of the pet Deer that she 

 had fed a hundred times. 



One might easily collect scores of instances to show that 

 all our American species of Deer — not only the bucks in autumn, 

 but bucks or does in spring, summer, autumn, or winter — 

 after the second year, may become dangerous animals, and are 

 almost sure to become so if not fully inspired with fear of man. 



Dr. W. T. Hornaday, who has had probably as much ex- 

 perience with captive animals as any man living in America, 

 also writes a word of warning on the subject:®^ 



*' During the season immediately following the perfect 

 development of the new antlers — say September, October, 

 November — male Deer, Elk, Caribou, and Moose sometimes 

 become as savage as whelp-robbed tigers. The neck swells 



"Mam. Adir., 1884, p. 117. ** Amer. Nat. Hist., 1904, p. 121. 



