THE DEER FAMILY 43 



fully grown and strong by the end of the summer, 

 when the bucks are much given to testing them on 

 each other and indulge in many pushing-matches, often 

 fighting viciously. Sometimes the horns become locked, 

 ajid the two deer, being fastened together, die from 

 starvation. Many pairs of these locked antlers have 

 been picked up in the woods. 



The antlers of all deer have branches when the deer 

 are fully grown, but the first antlers of a 3'oung two- 

 year-old are spikes, as they are called, without branches. 

 Hence sportsmen often speak of shooting a spike- 

 buck. 



Although the deer are not usually regarded as dan- 

 gerous animals, they at times will attack persons and 

 many instances are on record where elk, moose, and 

 the smaller deer have shown fight when wounded and 

 have charged their enemy. Mr. Caton tells us of an 

 elk in his park which killed a trespasser. Mr. Horna- 

 day gives us an account of another which killed a man 

 in Montana, who entered the corral armed with a pitch- 

 fork to show a friend that the large male elk feared 

 him. 



Mr. Hornaday says that once, when unarmed and 

 alone, he saved himself from an infuriated buck (fortu- 

 nately a small one) by suddenly releasing one antler, 

 seizing a foreleg low down, and pulling it up so high 

 that the animal was powerless to lunge forward as he 

 had been doing. In this way he held him at bay and 

 at last worked him to a spot where he secured a stout 

 cudgel, with which he belabored him so unmercifully 

 that he was conquered for that day. 



I once saw two small white-tail bucks break through 



