74 THE ASSEMBLAGES OF THE DEERS. 



trees on two or three acres of woodland have been killed by two or 

 three of these animals. Usually, however, they are not so destructive, 

 and in western New York they rarely kill trees at all, though they 

 greatly injure them." 



As for the deer, none of them, you may be sure, go to sleep in winter. 

 In the far North they retreat from the wild wind-swept " barren-grounds," 

 where they have been pasturing, to the protection of the forests. There 

 the reindeer, moose, and caribou will scrape away the snow in spaces, 

 called "yards," where they can get at the grass, browse leaves, and lie 

 down without floundering in the drifts. The wall of untouched snow 

 about these yards is sometimes many feet high, and the animals so dis- 

 like to leave them that they grow thin and almost starved before the 

 spring comes. The mule-deer of the Rocky Mountains find little shel- 

 tered canons and nooks among the foot-hills, where the wind incessantly 

 blows the snow away from the grass, and where overhanging rocks or 

 clumps of thick spruces make a shelter at night. The mountain sheep — 

 to whom winter is of small consequence — do the same thing on the high 

 plateaus near the limit of timber growth. 



Elks and antelopes, like the smaller deer, often gather in winter into 

 great herds of hundreds or even thousands, and roam on the plains or in 

 the mountain valleys, finding pastures from which the dry, powdery snow- 

 has been blown away, and there seem not to heed the bitter temperature. 

 The same is true of the buffaloes; but it is at such times that the weak 

 animals fall a prey to famished wolves, following the herds as their only 

 hope of food. Our Virginian or common eastern deer does not encounter 

 so tempestuous or snowy winters as his fellows in Canada or the Rocky 

 Mountains; yet he is often driven by hunger to come close to the farm- 

 house, and even to visit the hay- stack. All these deers have a longer, 

 warmer growth of hair in winter to serve as an overcoat, and the fat they 

 amass in the autumn out of the hearty living then enjoyed ekes out their 

 scanty provender afterwards. 



Of bears we see very little in winter, yet they are more or less abroad. 

 Bears have sheltered places in the woods, particularly in a mountainous 

 country, where they can creep under ledges and find a warm bed of leaves 

 that the winds have drifted in. Here the}' curl up and sleep during cold 

 seasons until the weather moderates or hunger forces them out. The old 

 books will tell you that bears suck their paws to keep alive, but they 

 must have more substantial dinners than that or they will starve. The 

 polar bear has the hardest time, and the females of these monsters of 

 their race often lie where they are snowed under. It used to be thought 



