200 



NATURE'S CALENDAR 



Seotember 6 



mothers and fawns and yearlings straying 

 together, wherever they can get most re- 

 lief from the flies, while the bucks are 

 still hiding in secret nooks, waiting for 

 their antlers to put on their final points 

 and harden. 



In summer the deer come out of the 

 thick woods and resort to the borders of 

 streams and ponds, where at night they 

 love to wade into the water and feed on 

 the lilies and other succulent weeds and 

 grasses ; and they are often seen swim- 

 ming even large lakes as a short cut to 

 other pastures, where they browse until 

 daybreak warns them to seek the seclu- 

 sion of the thickets. As September ad- 

 vances, and the marsh plants begin to 

 wither and fall down, the deer forsake 

 the watercourses for the forests, where a 

 plentiful supply of food now exists — best 

 of all beech-mast, of which they are very 

 fond, and upon which they fatten amaz- 

 ingly. By this time, 109, the new antlers 

 of the buck, which he has spent the sum- 

 mer months in nursing, are free from 

 the "velvet," and, feeling himself able to 

 battle with all competitors, he sets about 

 his wooing. Coincidently both sexes are 

 shedding their reddish summer coats and 

 taking on the warmer "blue" pelage of 

 winter; and the spots of the fawns disap- 

 pear. The deer of the Rocky Mountain 

 region are three or four weeks earlier in 

 these changes. 



Other mammals are now changing their 



September 7 



