308 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



The fawns are weaned by the time they are four months old, 

 but they follow the dam, — the males for one year, and the fe- 

 males for two years. After the fawns are weaned, the does im- 

 prove very rapidly in flesh. Indeed it is astonishing to see how 

 rapidly a buck or a doe will improve so soon as the acorns begin 

 to fall. Ten days are sufficient to change a poor deer to a fat 

 one, at the time when the summer coat is discarded and the 

 glossy winter dress appears. 



THE ACAPULCO DEER.^ 



While I cannot charge the Acapulco Deer with having a wicked 

 disposition, it certainly has more courage and combativeness than 

 any of our other deer, and corresponds in these respects with the 

 Ceylon deer. This is apparent from what has been already in- 

 cidentally mentioned in several places in this work. They do not 

 hesitate to attack deer of the other species three times their size 

 and strength, and beat them by mere force of courage and will. 

 I shall not now repeat examples to illustrate this. 



They seem to be hardy in domestication, but whether they i 

 would continue so and would be prolific through succeeding gen- I 

 erations, are questions yet to be proved. So far both they and 

 the Ceylon deer have proved hardy and prolific, but so it was 

 with the Virginia deer at first, and it was not till the third or 

 fourth generation, that the great want of vigor and reproductive 



1 While this work is going through the press, I find in the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology of Harvard College a mounted specimen of this Acapulco Deer marked 

 " Cerviis il/ea:i'caHi/s " and referring to " Hassler Expedition," and giving Acapulco 

 as its location. Cery»s il/aricanHs of the naturalists is much larger than this deer, 

 and has all the indicia of C. Virginianus, only it is smaller than the same species far- 

 ther north. I have found the best representatives of C. Mexicanus in the gardens of 

 the London Zoological Society. Without again going into the detail of the indicia 

 observed, I may say that the metatarsal gland is present on C. Mexicanus, and is in all 

 respects case marked precisely as on the common deer; while this gland is entirely 

 wanting on C. Acapidcensis, and so it is on the mounted specimen referred to. It is , 

 not remarkable that one who has not made a special study of the deer, should con- 

 found the two, and so give the smaller and more southern species the name of the! 

 other, actually believing them to be identical. Had not the name Cervus MexicanusX 

 been long appropriated to a variety of the Virginia deer, I should have selected it fori 

 the name of this small species, which, so far as I know, I have for the first time ac- 

 curately described, but to have given it that most appropriate name would have ever 

 confounded it with the variety of the common deer to which the name has been so 

 long attached. Hence I was compelled to give it another name in order to preserve 

 the proper distinction. If travelers, and even naturalists, have hitherto supposed 

 these two species of small Mexican deer to be identical, I trust hereafter they will 

 have no trouble in distinguishing and identifying a specimen of either whenever met 

 with. 



