ANTLERS OF THE AMERICAN DEER. 87 



Weight. — The bucks weigh from 100 lbs. to 150 lbs. : the 

 does from 80 lbs. to 110 lbs. 



Distributed everywhere through the Southern States. 



rjlO the sportsman no animal, perhaps, presents more 

 -■- amusement than the red deer of America, being 

 almost the only large animal which has not been driven 

 far from the haunts of man by continued persecution and 

 slaughter. Although constantly hunted b}^ hounds, and 

 shot at by the stalker, the beautiful animal flies from 

 his foes only for a short time, soon returning again to 

 its original haunts. The settlers live chiefly on his 

 flesh, so that when the backwoodsman shoulders his 

 long rifle and announces that he is going for meat, it 

 may be taken for granted that he means to bring home 

 that species of flesh which in England is called venison. 

 Beef is beef all over the world (excepting, perhaps, 

 amongst the horse-eating Parisians) ; hogs' flesh and 

 bear flesh are denoted by their prefixes ; but deer flesh 

 is most decidedly and emphatically ^ meat ' in the 

 South-western States of America, and is more frequently 

 seen on the tables of all classes than any other kind of 

 animal food. So that it follows that no wild animal of 

 the American continent is more generally known or 

 appreciated than the common red deer. 



The American deer diff'ers in some respects from 

 that of Europe, the most striking distinction being in 

 the antlers. In the Hio^hlands of Scotland the horns of 

 the red deer lean backwards from the brow, while the 



