128 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



is changed, the people will obey it better, and there won't 

 be so many deer killed !" 



Now, what must be thought of that as an argument to 

 put up to a lawmaker? In effect that proposition says: 

 "Give us what we demand and John Doe will obey the law; 

 otherwise, he will violate it on the sly." 



The doe-killers also say: "The woods are full of dry 

 does. There are not now bucks enough for breeding pur- 

 poses." 



Now that statement is absolutely incorrect; and equally 

 incorrect is the statement (which I heard uttered in a hear- 

 ing at Albany in 1915) that "deer are monogamous." There 

 is not one word of truth in either ! Buck deer, all over the 

 world, are thoroughly polygamous animals. In the Aus- 

 trian deer forests, and also in deer-breeding operations in 

 this country, the rule is four does to every buck! In some 

 American herds the proportion of females is far greater 

 than that, with good results. 



The census of wild deer actually seen and counted in the 

 Adirondacks this winter by our state game wardens reveals 

 the fact that today in the Adirondacks there are not more 

 than two does to every buck! Here are the figures, down 

 to February 14, 1916 : 



Bucks seen and recognized 789 



Does seen and recognized 1,342 



Bucks and does seen, sexes not determined... 2,151 

 Number of fawns seen 452 



I challenge anyone familiar with figures to prove from 

 these statistics that there are even as many as two does to 

 one buck. The proportions of does and bucks in the un- 

 known are in all probability not substantially different 

 from the known, where, roughly speaking, it is one buck to 

 less than two does! 



These figures lay the ghost of the phantom "dry doe," 

 forever! We never believed a word of the "dry-doe" the- 



