AND MANAGEMENT. I I 



the beginning of September. I remember on one 

 occasion a buck being so fast asleep that I drove close 

 to him in a cart, the man driving, exclaiming, " There 

 is one buck dead !" but as I was in quest of a fat buck 

 I immediately alighted and shot him as he laid asleep, 

 and a fine fat buck he was. The buck venison is not 

 out of season till the 26th of September, at which time 

 their necks will be much enlarged, and they will 

 rapidly lose their fat. The rutting season may be said 

 to commence from the loth of October, and lasts 

 about a month. In 1868 the deer were in full rut on 

 the 4th of October ; this may be accounted for by the 

 peculiar dry season as well as by the early fall of 

 acorns. During the rutting season, the bucks make a 

 remarkable noise, called " treating," or " groaning," 

 in the early morning and evening there will be a 

 regular chorus among the herd while numerous fights 

 are going on in the rutting ground, a portion of the 

 park that is set apart by the deer themselves, and 

 annually resorted to ; there will be observed here a 

 great number of shallow pools, which the bucks make 

 with their feet, and when they are tired they will lie 

 down in these shallow pools ; probably the cool, wet 

 earth is grateful to their heated bodies, and these holes 

 too, retain water for a short time, so that they fre- 

 quently answer the purpose of a drinking trough ; the 

 fact of the deer regularly making one portion of the 

 park their rendezvous during this season is very re- 

 markable, as also the wonderful order of nature ex- 

 hibited in the habits of the deer at this season. Until 

 now the buck's manner and behaviour towards the 

 does has been marked by coldness and severity, while 

 at this time their gallantry is most observable, and the 

 oldest and strongest headed bucks collect each a small 

 herd of does which they attend to day and night, 

 themselves groaning continuously and chasing with 

 great earnestness any doe that attempts to desert 

 them, such desertion however is easily effected when 

 the separate herds are near each other, the buck who 



