320 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



frequently pulls down the twigs bearing the dry oak leaves, and 

 eats them with apparent relish, though he is rarely seen to pick 

 up those which have fallen after maturity. If deprived of ar- 

 boreous food lie will keep healthy and fat on grass alone. In 

 winter he will scrape away deep snow with his feet to obtain the 

 grass beneath it, and by some unexplained means seems always 

 to select the best places. 



I feed my herd of Elk in winter almost exclusively on corn 

 (maize) stalks, and they will keep fat upon them if only they get 

 enough, though they be compelled to eat all the stalks not larger 

 than one's finger. They are promiscuous consumers, though great 

 feeders, requiring as much to keep them as the same number of 

 our black cattle ; but they will eat greedily damaged hay, which 

 the cattle or horses would reject. After we commence feeding 

 them in winter they stop foraging for themselves, until their 

 rations are stopped, and they are forced to it by two or three 

 days' fasting. They make no attempt in the winter to strip the 

 bark from even the wild apple or the poplar, although they do 

 this sometimes, though rarely, in summer. In a very few years 

 they killed out all the shrubbery in their park, and keep the 

 trees thoroughly trimmed as far as they can reach. I am not 

 aware that they ever eat the leaves or twigs of evergreens, nor 

 have I ever known them to eat the parasitic lichens which fre- 

 quently grow upon the trees, or the mosses found on decaying 

 logs. They are very fond of all sorts of grain, and it is astonish- 

 ing to see what an enormous ear of maize they will take and 

 crunch up at once. Even the cob, after the corn has all been 

 removed, I have never known them to reject. They soon learn 

 to come to the call of one who feeds them, in the latter part of 

 the season, but in the summer, when the grass is sweet and ten- 

 der, they are more indifferent, and may refuse to answer. 



Both species of Caribou live largely upon a variety of lichens 

 found in their respective ranges, and indeed these seem indis- 

 pensable to their well-being. At least it is so with the European 

 reindeer, for wherever they are kept in gardens or menageries 

 the mosses from their native ranges have to be imported for 

 them. This, however, is not their only food. They, too, feed 

 upon tlie trees and shrubbery, and upon the grasses, wherever 

 they find them. The experienced hunter follows them through 

 the bush with great facility by noticing where they have cropped 

 the twigs or stripped the moss from the trees in passing, and by 

 careful inspection will judge something of their number, and 



