HABIT AND DOMESTICATION. 297 



merit only. I have once noticed something like this in a common 

 deer, but at the best it was the faintest sort of a play, if indeed 

 that was its meaning. And this pestering of the Mule Deer 

 was the only amusement I have seen the diminutive species in- 

 dulge in. But the Mule Deer not only amuses itself in the way 

 described but loves to have me join him in a little sham fight, 

 and if I handle him a little roughly, or try to throw him down 

 when he rears up and places his feet on my shoulders, he will re- 

 cover and jump sideways and backwards twisting himself into 

 grotesque attitudes, though he does this in an awkward way. I 

 have not observed this disposition to play after the animal is two 

 or three years old, and the male seems more inclined to it than 

 the female. I elsewhere mention that he sometimes appears to be- 

 come very appreciative of his own importance, when he will strut 

 around, his tail elevated to a vertical position, as is observed 

 with the male goat. 



Altogether there is little to admire in the disposition of the 

 Mule Deer beyond his taste for amusement as above described. 

 The viciousness of the adult male during the rutting season ex- 

 ceeds that of any of the others, in my grounds, at least, which 

 is far from commending him as a familiar pet. This may arise 

 from the fact that they have not the natural fear of man of the 

 Virginia deer, for, as we shall see, when the young are raised by 

 their dams in the park they become much more tame than the 

 others, indeed nearly as much so as if raised by hand. 



The Mule Deer manifests by far the most salacious disposition 

 of any of the deer which I have had an opportunity of closely 

 studying. 



My efforts to domesticate the Mule Deer and the Columbia 

 Deer have been pi-actical failures. For the last eight years I 

 have with great care and at considerable expense, experimented 

 with both these species, and have brought many individuals from 

 great distances, and have studied their wants and cared for them 

 with unwearied pains, but now all are dead. The last died but a 

 few weeks since. My failures, however, by no means assure us 

 that they may not sustain the burden of domestication in coun- 

 tries where they live and prosper in a wild state. Both are na- 

 tives of the far West. The Mule Deer I brought from Utah 

 and Nevada, distances from fifteen hundred to two thousand 

 miles, and the Columbia Deer from Washington Territory and 

 Oregon, say three thousand miles away. No wild Mule Deer 



