How Animals Talk 



crossing broad water you can get as close to him 

 as you will; you can take a grip on him and let 

 him tow your canoe, as thoughtless people some- 

 times do, encouraged by their guides; but I sug- 

 gest that it would be much better to shoot the 

 creature and have done with it. 



A deer's powers are very delicately balanced; 

 he is nervous, high strung, easily upset. Even on 

 land, where he can distance you in a moment, he 

 begins to worry if he finds you holding steadily to 

 his trail; and I have known a young deer to be- 

 come so flustered after he had been jumped and 

 followed a few times that he began to act in most 

 erratic fashion, and was very easily approached. 

 When you chase him in the water, and he finds that 

 he cannot get away from you, he may give up and 

 drown, as a rabbit submits without a struggle 

 when a weasel rises in front of him; but a vigorous 

 deer is more apt to become highly excited, to 

 struggle wildly, to waste ten times as much energy 

 as would keep him afloat, to jump his heart action 

 at a dangerous rate; and then a very little more 

 will finish him as surely as a bullet in the brain. 



Twice have I seen deer thus killed by thought- 

 less campers, the last victim being a splendid buck 

 full grown. Two men saw him swimming an arm 

 of Moosehead Lake, and launched a canoe with no 

 unkinder purpose than to turn him back to shore, 



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