RUSSELL] THE VIRGINIA DEER 377 



the black birch, — foliage of arbor \'itae, hemlock and yew. Digging 

 thru the snow with his hoofs, he feeds upon wintergreen and many 

 other green things like mosses and lichens. Early in the spring he 

 gradually works his way toward the shores of lakes and finds there 

 pickerel weed, lily-pads and spatter-dock. From spring to autimin 

 his food consists of numerous herbs, grasses, aquatic plants, leaves 

 of shrubs and trees, and berries of mountain ash and dwarf cornel. 

 By the middle of September the deer in the Adirondack region 

 desert the water courses and retire to more secluded parts of the 

 forest. 



The stags when hard pushed are desperate fighters. They are 

 very shy during the period when the antlers are growing, for they 

 are helpless if attacked, since their new antlers are extremely sensi- 

 tive and tender. Often a pair of rival stags lose their lives in 

 desperate encoimters thru the locking of the antlers. They are 

 unable to separate and both miserably perish of exhaustion and 

 starvation. 



Deer usually wander about, feeding all the morning, following a 

 more or less direct course according to the lay of the land. Along 

 the foot of a ridge by the edge of a swamp is a favorite feeding 

 ground and they like to trace the windings of a trout brook between 

 low hills. In the middle of the day, they He down to rest, in the lee 

 of a thick clump of evergreens, where they can watch their tracks 

 for any enemy that may be following them. Before l\^ng down, 

 they make a practice of going back a little distance on their tracks 

 to make sure that they are not followed. Snow on the grotmd 

 enables one to see the tracks a long way ahead. When alarmed, the 

 deer goes flx-ing off among the trees showing just the white flash of 

 the tail as he disappears. 



In most European countries, the hunting of deer has for an 

 indefinite period been regarded as the sport of kings. So carefully, 

 indeed were they protected in England, that anyone killing a stag 

 in the king's forest without permission was liable to be put to 

 death. To go out into the forests with the fixed intention of killing 

 anything so beautiful and harmless as a deer, seems brutal and 

 heartless any way you care to look at the matter. One, who has 

 once looked into the Hquid eyes of a 3'oung fawn or those of its 

 mother and afterwards destroyed one of them, burdens his con- 

 science with a sort of questionable gmlt for the rest of his days. 

 Yet the kindest hearted men do so every fall and tho they may 

 leam to hate themselves for every deer they have shot, they cannot 



