DEER AND THEIR HABITS 07 



resembles a bird call. Unseen, he watches us from 

 his leafy vantage in a sense of blissful security. A 

 musk rat dives in front of the canoe, to appear again 

 beneath the shelter of overhanging bushes. The bark 

 freshly stripped from a tree close to the river, shows 

 where a bear has been recently feeding. There is a 

 sharp turn in the stream, which brings a high bank 

 into view. Over it the head of a magnificent buck 

 with wide-spreading antlers appears. We have time 

 to take in as much of the imposing monarch as the 

 brief interval between two paddle-strokes will permit. 

 A doe drinking from the stream gives us more time 

 to admire its graceful form. The snap of the camera 

 shutter is sufficient to give the alarm, and it bounds 

 into the forest, and in a moment is out of sight. 



The red deer of Canada is a noble creature. It 

 was still wearing its summer coat, a bay-red tinge, in 

 keeping with the early autumn colouring. During 

 winter snows it turns to a leaden grey, that aids its 

 survival in the leafless forest. It has full lustrous 

 eyes set in a slim head, surmounted by antlers of 

 posterior and anterior projections. It has a long 

 body and slender legs, the greyhound build that aids 

 it in its rapid flight in the open prairie and through 

 the brushwood. 



The charge of cowardice in defence of its young 

 has been recently exploded. Its habit of leaving the 

 doe and fawn to the mercy of the enemy is in conso- 

 nance with the custom of the mother bird which 



