300 



The Living Animals of the World 





There is no particular reason why the 

 deer of cold countries should not be inter- 

 changed ; they seem to have the natural 

 adaptability of oxen. But it is not a little 

 surprising that the species from warm climates 

 should nourish in damp and cold ones. The 

 axis deer would be a real addition to the 

 fauna of the great European forests, if it 

 is found that it survives the winter snows 

 without some form of artificial shelter. No 

 one seems to have considered the advisa- 

 bility of introducing the mule-deer into the 

 Central European woods. It is a much finer 

 animal than the fallow buck, and the venison 

 is excellent. In those woods where fallow 

 deer are preserved in a wild state, as on 

 many of the German Emperor's sporting- 

 estates, the mule-deer would be a far more 

 ornamental animal. Few people know what 

 immense herds of red and fallow deer, as 

 well as of wild boars, still exist, under 

 careful preservation, in the forests of the 

 great German, Austrian, and Russian princes, 

 and in the royal forests of their respective 

 countries. 



When the Kaiser holds his great Court 

 hunting-parties, to which the guests all come 

 dressed in the uniform of the Order of 

 St. Hubert, as many as 200 deer are shot in a day. They are driven past the guns by 

 beaters. After the day's sport is over all the antlers are wreathed with boughs of spruce fir, 

 and the stags laid out like rabbits after an English battue. 



It is rather surprising that only one species of deer has been entirely domesticated viz. 

 the Reindeer. Deer's meat is as highly prized as that of any other game, perhaps even more 

 so. There is almost no part of the animal which is not useful. The horns are valuable for 

 knife-handles, and always command a good price ; they were prized even by prehistoric man, 

 who converted them into pick-axes, and made spear-heads and daggers of them. The leather of 

 the hide makes the softest and best of all hunting-garments : the American Indian or trapper 

 always wears, or used to wear, a deer-skin shirt and deer-skin leggings, made as exquisitely soft 

 as chamois leather by a process known to the squaws. At the present time all the best gloves 

 are made of doe-skin ; they are far the most costly of any gloves. Doe-skin breeches are 

 also a luxurious garment to ride in. For ornamental rugs few skins beat those of the Dappled 

 Deer, laid on the floor of some finely furnished hall or room. 



Thus we have the curious spectacle of the wild men of the Far North, the Lapps and 

 Ostiaks, taming and keeping in domestication great herds of deer, milking them, using them 

 as beasts of draught, and feeding on their flesh, while far more civilised races in the South have 

 not taken the trouble to do so. The reason is not easy to surmise, unless it be that the idea 

 of making use of the Deer Tribe solely as beasts of the chase was so rooted in the European 

 ruling races, and their kings and nobles, that the agriculturist never had a chance of trying 

 to tame and use them for other purposes. It is certain that during the yMiddle Ages law and 

 custom made any such attempt quite impossible. The deer were a valuible sporting asset, so 

 hedged round with an atmosphere of feudal privilege, that to convert/them into something 

 useful to the common people would have been regarded as an insult t/ the powers that were. 



Photo by the Duchess of Bedford] [ Woburn Abbey, 



YOUNG HIMALAYAN MUSK-DEER. 



The male carries a pouch on the abdomen, from which the musk is 

 obtained. There are no antlers. 



* 



