NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 285 



decreased after 1842, and the last one was seen near Delavan 

 in 1852. "Probably the most southern limit of their range in 

 Wisconsin at the present time is Sauk County" (Cory, 1912). 

 Although formerly abundant in Illinois, deer seem to have 

 been greatly reduced by the last decade or so of the last century, 

 and by 1900 were regarded as practically exterminated within 

 the State, although even as late as 1910 Cory had reliable 

 reports of a very few in Alexander County in the southern 

 portion of the State. Possibly this remnant has increased in 

 the succeeding quarter century enough to justify the figure 

 given in the 1939 Federal estimate of 250 animals. 



The way in which this deer will "come back" if depleted 

 numbers are allowed to breed up for a period of years is well 

 illustrated by the experience of the three southern States of 

 New England. Before the settlement of the country deer were 

 a staple source of food for the Indians. From deer skins they 

 prepared clothing, and from the straight metapodial bones 

 they skilfully cut out portions for use as implements. The 

 first settlers also depended in part on these animals for sus- 

 tenance and buckskin, and there was a large trade in the hides. 

 As early as 1646 Rhode Island had a closed season on deer 

 from May 1 till November 1. In 1698 Connecticut ordered 

 that deer should not be killed between January 15 and July 15, 

 and this period was soon after extended to include the re- 

 mainder of these two months. Massachusetts soon followed 

 suit, and deer reeves were appointed to enforce the law. For 

 nearly a century the numbers continued without notable de- 

 pletion, but by the close of the eighteenth century deer had 

 become scarce or nearly exterminated over much of southern 

 New England, until in 1842 Linsley, in his account of the mam- 

 mals of Connecticut, makes mention only of one killed the 

 previous year in Waterbury. In 1869 J. A. Allen wrote that 

 in Massachusetts they were gone except for a few in Plymouth, 

 Barnstable, and Berkshire Counties, where they were "strin- 

 gently protected by law. " Much of southern New Hampshire 

 and parts of Massachusetts were in the middle of the nineteenth 

 century cleared and used as grazing country, supplying the 

 nearby markets until the opening of the more extensive areas 

 of the Middle West, after which these regions gradually re- 

 verted to woodlands. Toward the end of the century the 

 remnant of deer that had hung on in the Berkshires of the 



