HABIT AND DOMESTICATION. 301 



and a boy with whom he disputed the right of way at once. The 

 man broke up a fence board over his head, but went to grass 

 twice in the conflict and received some bruises from his fore feet, 

 but the fence saved him from serious injury. So soon as his es- 

 cape and this feat were reported, the keeper went for him and at • 

 tempted to put a strap around his neck and lead him home, when 

 he knocked hijn down, but was satisfied with that, and quietly 

 submitted to be led back to the park. Indeed I think he showed 

 as much wickedness as did the mule deer at his age ; and during 

 the entire winter he looked and acted as if troubled with bad 

 digestion, and consequently in an ill humor with everybody and 

 everything. However, he eat full rations and grew fat. The 

 next year we were again obliged to remove his antlers, but to- 

 wards winter he began to show symptoms of disease ; though he 

 eat his allowance well, in the latter part of winter he failed rap- 

 idly and died in the spring. 



I never knew him to take any notice of a Virginia deer, ex- 

 cept to drive it away from some food he coveted, but he some- 

 times condescended to play, in a very lazy way, with the young 

 mule buck that sported his first antlers, by rubbing their heads to- 

 gether, as if in mimic battle. He evidently thought the mule 

 deer more worthy of his attention than the Virginia deer. 



This was the only manifestation of a disposition to play which 

 I have ever observed in the Columbia Deer. The Columbia 

 Deer are not the arrant cowards which the mule deer proved 

 to be. 



I never raised a Columbia fawn. None survived more than a 

 few days, though, as is elsewhere explained, I think this was due 

 to accidental causes. Under more favorable circumstances, the 

 fawns might live for a year or two, but I do not believe it practi- 

 cable to bring them directly from their native haunts and propa- 

 gate successfully from them here. However, we cannot tell. I 

 have inquired for many years why the Columbia deer never comes 

 east of the Sierras in California, or even into the western slopes 

 of the Rocky Mountains further north. When I consider the 

 variety of climate which he endures on the Pacific coast, and that 

 there is no kind of food there which he could not find elsewhere, 

 I am surprised that their range is circumscribed by an imaginary 

 line, beyond which they cannot pass more than if the boundary 

 were a Chinese wall. 



