90 THE COMMON AMERICAN DEER. 



and musky odour. The hunters say that it is this 

 odour which the dogs smell, and which enables the 

 hounds to follow the track of the deer with precision. 

 In the feet of some of the old bucks the secretion is 

 abundantly developed, though hunters say that it is 

 inactive while the does have fawns by their sides and 

 while the bucks are in the velvet ; and that thus, as 

 they leave no scent behind them, they do not so 

 readily fall a prey to wolves, or to the hound of the 

 hunter, while they are in a defenceless state. 



The deer breed rapidly in Texas, — generally pro- 

 ducing a couple of fawns, sometimes three. Now that 

 the civil war is ended it would, perhaps, be well for the 

 Acclimatisation Society to remember this fact. In 

 Scrope's ' Days of Deer Stalking,' page 16, we find the 

 following assertion : — ^ Neither Mr. John Crerer, who 

 has followed deer in the forest of Athol for sixty years, 

 nor any other individual there, has ever seeo a hart 

 cover a hind.' This is not the case in Texas. Few who 

 have been on the prairies as hunters for a year or two 

 but have seen the act repeatedly, and very instan- 

 taneous it is. 



The young are generally produced about the month 

 of March — later in more northern States. The doe 

 conceals her young under a prostrate tree-top, or in 

 the midst of some thick grass, visiting them occasion- 

 ally during the day, especially during the morning, 

 evening, and at night. The mother is much attached 



