Virginia Deer 
outward and then upward, the tips curving in again toward 
one another, there is a short upright spike near the base, beyond 
which the beam gives off two upright branches making three 
nearly equal prongs. At no point does the antler branch 
dichotomously. 
Range. Eastern North America, separable into several geographical 
varieties and represented westward to the Pacific by other closely 
related races. (See below.) 
The Virginia deer in one or other of its varieties was originally 
spread abundantly over our entire country, but the encroachments of 
agriculture upon the wilderness, the inroad of the lumberman, the fire 
which ever travels in his wake and the spread of towns and cities 
have driven the deer from a large portion of their former range and 
sadly decreased their numbers elsewhere. Such conditions now pre- 
vail through many parts of Pennsylvania where the devastation of the 
lumbermen and the ruin of the magnificent primeval forest are 
occurrences of yesterday. Farther north and south, in wilds as yet 
untouched, the deer still hold their own, and in New Jersey a few 
remain, thanks to the inhospitable pine barrens and impenetrable 
swamps, as well as to wise legislation properly enforced. 
In New England within the last few years these beautiful 
creatures have ventured to return and dwell again in the haunts 
of their ancestors, wherever the destruction worked by civilization has 
not been too severe. Wise '!aws passed for their protection have 
yielded good results more quickly than the most sanguine could 
have hoped. 
In 1853 Thoreau wrote: ‘‘Minot says his mother told him 
she had seen a deer come down the hill behind her house and cross 
the road and meadow in front. Thinks it may have been eighty years 
ago.” Evidently Thoreau supposed that that wild deer seen in 
Concord about 1770 was one of the last of its race ever to visit 
that part of the country. Yet if he had lived to be an old man 
he might frequently have seen them, if not at Concord, at least 
at other spots in New England from which they were supposed 
to have been driven forever. Not the pampered stock bred in game 
preserves, but the sturdy descendants of the native wild deer that the 
red men hunted through rough forests when the whole country be- 
longed to them alone. 
Now they may be seen in quiet country places in various parts of 
New England, browsing at the edge of leafy woodlands or resting in 
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