272 ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY 



best, with a little oats and corn; they must, of course, have plenty of 

 water; also salt. 



The enclosure can be fenced with five-foot woven wire, which is 

 usually high enough; but uncastrated males four or five years old must 

 be strongly fenced. A given enclosure will support about as many 

 elk as it would support cattle. Young stock can be bought for breed- 

 ing purposes for $100 or less each. The bucks are docile at most 

 times, but during the breeding season they often get very savage and 

 dangerous, and fatalities have been caused by them. The males not 

 needed for breeding may be castrated, which not only makes them gentle 

 but improves the meat, just as it does with cattle and other domestic 

 animals. 



Adult males average 700 to 1000 pounds in weight; females some- 

 what less. 



A smaller form that may be successfully raised under domestica- 

 tion is the Virginia deer or white tailed deer, Odocoileus (Caraicus) 

 mrginianus, the commonest of our deer. Like other deer it is polyga- 

 mous, one male to ten or twelve females being sufficient for breeding 

 purposes; this makes it possible to castrate most of the males for the 

 same reasons that were given for castrating the elk bucks; though not so 

 large, the bucks of this species are often very dangerous during the 

 rutting season, which is November. The does breed at 17 months 

 and have a gestation period of seven months. The first birth 

 is single; after that twins are usually born. They eat grass, weeds, 

 leaves, acorns, chestnuts, in fact, almost anything; like the elk they 

 must have salt, and, of course, water. 



It is probable that besides the above species almost any of the deer 

 family could be successfully and perhaps profitably raised under 

 domestication. 



Reindeer or caribou are represented in northern North America, 

 according to Lantz by two groups, the large, wild, woodland caribou, 

 Rangifer caribou, and the less important, barren-ground caribou, R. 

 arcticus Fig. 171. These species, so similar to the European reindeer, 

 R. tarandus, have never been domesticated, though there seems to be 

 no reason why they should not be; and the enormous herds still at 

 large in Newfoundland would supply unlimited stock. 



In 1892 the first domesticated Lapland reindeer were introduced 

 from Siberia into Alaska by Dr. Jackson of the Bureau of Education. 



