THE GAME ANIMALS OF CANADA 41 



long as two months, but by the middle of December the 

 mating fury subsides, and bucks, does, and their fawns of 

 that year wander the woods together until the deepening 

 snows circumscribe their movements and confine them to 

 ''yards" of well-trodden snow, from which paths radiate 

 to their chosen feeding-grounds. Deep snow is a calamity 

 to the deer, and their wanderings are limited until the ad- 

 vent of warm days in the spring releases them and permits 

 the resumption of the separate life of the sexes. When 

 the bucks are in their prime they may weigh as much as 

 300 pounds. 



Abundance. — The white-tailed deer is the most abundant 

 larger-game animal throughout its range in Canada, par- 

 ticularly in the east. In the early days it was the chief 

 source of meat, and, in many cases, of clothing, and many a 

 settler has been saved from starvation by the presence of 

 this animal. 



Formerly it did not occur in a large part of the region 

 in eastern Canada that it now occupies. From its original 

 home in the south it has followed the settlers into our north- 

 em woods. • 



It has been generally believed that the white-tailed deer 

 did not formerly exist in Nova Scotia. Recently, however, 

 bones of this deer have been found in two widely separated 

 prehistoric Indian shell-heaps by archaeologists of the 

 Canadian Geological Survey.* Toe bones were found in a 

 shell-heap near Mahone Bay, by Mr. W. J. Wintemberg, 

 in 1913, and a toe bone was also found in a shell-heap on 

 Merigomish harbour, on the north coast, by Mr. Harlan 

 I. Smith, in 1914. Other bones, supposedly of the same 

 species, have also been found in these heaps. These dis- 

 coveries indicate the existence of the white-tailed deer in 

 Nova Scotia in prehistoric times. The absence of deer 

 made it necessary to introduce them into Nova Scotia. 



*Science, N. S., Vol. 49, No. 1275, p. 540, June 6, 1919. 



