298 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



was ever heard of within five hundred miles of here, and no wild 

 Columbia Deer was ever seen either in or east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. We may well suppose that the change of climate 

 and probably of aliment was too great for them. All have died 

 of one disease, — diarrhea. I hope some one in a congenial lo- 

 cality will make a serious effort to domesticate both these species. 

 Of both species the first I had dropped in my grounds were 

 twins. Those from the Mule doe lived nearly a year and a half, 

 which gave me a good opportunity to observe the habits of the 

 young. They grew to a fair size ; and on the male grew very 

 large antlers for his age, both of which were bifurcated. Neither 

 of these fawns showed the least inclination to breed the summer 

 they were a year old. The conduct of the mother as connected 

 with these fawns, of course interested me. She hid them in 

 separate places, and only sought them at intervals to give them 

 nourishment, and would never go near them, if she suspected she 

 was watched, imitating exactly in this regard the Virginia deer. 

 When one was found and placed in a yard with a fence four feet 

 high, she would sometimes jump the fence and visit it, but re- 

 fused to allow it to suck till the other was found and placed in 

 the same yard, when she nursed them both indifferently. I 

 could not imagine the cause of her conduct to the first till I 

 found she had another, for which she was evidently saving all 

 the milk. I kept them in the yard but a couple of weeks, where 

 they were visited frequently in order to tame them, but we made 

 little progress in that direction ; and believing they would do 

 better at large I turned them out, when she immediately secreted 

 them, and it was six weeks more before she allowed them to 

 follow her, never being seen to visit them except very early in 

 the morning, or late in the evening. I would sometimes come 

 across one in its seclusion, when after the manner of the Virginia 

 fawn it would crouch as low down as possible, with its chin 

 upon the ground and great ears laid back upon its neck, and if it 

 believed itself undiscovered would remain perfectly still, following 

 me with its bright eyes till very near it, but as soon as it ap- 

 preciated that it was discovered would bound away with the 

 jumps before described, towards some ravine or thicket till out of 

 sight, never stopping once to look back, as is frequently the case 

 with the fawns of the Virginia deer. In the fall, however, they 

 become much tamer than the Virginia fawns raised in the same 

 grounds and under the same circumstance, except the two weeks' 

 confinement before mentioned. By November they would can- 



