HUNTING THE AMERICAN DEER. 389 



Its horns are cast usually in the winter, but the period appears to 

 depend upon the latitude and the severity of the season. In New 

 York, the deer are protected by law during the rutting season. 



Description. Heal long and slender ; muzzle pointed-; eyes 

 large and lustrous, the lachrymal pits consisting of a slight fold of 

 the skin ; tail moderate, depressed ; legs slender ; a glandular pouch 

 concealed by a thick tuft of rigid hairs inside of- the hind legs, 

 odoriferous, and connected with the sexual appetite. The horns 

 of the adult male vary so much in shape, that scarcely any two 

 are alike; appearing to depend upon age, season and abundance 

 or scarcity of food. In the first season they are simple, cylindrical 

 and pointed, and in this state they are known as spike bucks ; in 

 the following season, they have a short, straight antler; and the 

 number increases until the fourth season, when the following is 

 the most usual condition of the horns : the main stem rises upward 

 and laterally, and then makes a broad curve forward, with the 

 tips turned inward and downward; on the inner and slightly ante 

 rior surface of the main stem, arises a short brow antler, directed 

 forward and upward ; the stem, thus far, is roughened by nodosi- 

 ties and furrows ; above this, a branch is thrown off from the inte- 

 rior or anterior, curving inwards and forwards, and occasionally 

 another branch before reaching the tip. These first and second 

 oranches are occasionally themselves bifurcated ; and in one before 

 me now, the horns exhibit six tips on one side! including those of 

 the brow antlers, and on the other nine, the first branch being 

 bifid, the second trifid, a third simple, and the extreme tip itself 

 bifid. When the horn is palmated, the flattening occurs at the 

 origin of the first branch. In many specimens, there is only the 

 brow antler, and a single branch above. Fur, composed of flattened 

 angular hairs, lying smooth on the body. 



Color. Bluish-gray in the autumn and winter, dusky reddisn 

 or fulvous in the spring, becoming bluish in the summer ; the 

 fawns are irregularly spotted with white ; the gray or reddish 

 cclor in the adult extends over the whole head, back, sides, and 

 upper part of the tail ; a few white hairs often observed on the 

 rump at the origin of the tail ; beneath the chin, throat, belly 



