HABIT AND DOMESTICATION. 289 
formerly so very tame have been less petted and have become 
more shy, and do not come up to me with the confidence and 
familiarity they once manifested. 
I often see the young bucks, that is, those three or four years 
old and younger, engaged at play with their antlers as if in sham 
fight, in the fall and winter. This is the only amusement I have 
ever seen them engaged in. I have never observed the least dis- 
position in the young fawns or the does to play together in any 
way. 
Our Elk is more polygamous in his habits than any other deer 
except his congener the Red Deer of Europe (C. elaphus), or 
even any other quadruped with whose habits I am acquainted. 
Although they show such a lack of affection or sympathy for each 
other individually, still all are generally found together through- 
out the year till the commencement of the rut, when the master 
Elk asserts his prerogative, drives from the band all the other 
bucks, and gathers the does around him and keeps them together 
as much as possible. During this time the young bucks submit 
with tolerable grace to this discipline, and mostly keep together 
by themselves in a distant part of the park, generally with a few 
does that have eluded the vigilance of the master. But some- 
times a refractory young fellow will be seen hanging around the 
skirts of the band of does and gives the despot great trouble, 
which seems to be a real source of enjoyment to his tormentor. 
If he shows himself too near, his senior will rush at him with 
a wild ferocity and chase him, with threatening squeals, perhaps 
one or two hundred yards, making a terrible crash in the brush 
during the chase, for the pursued seeks the thickest shrubbery 
in his flight, and, if hard pressed, the youngster will utter a 
shrill scream of alarm, but always manages to save his hide, and 
stops short so soon as the pursuit is over, and follows back 
pretty close upon the heels of the old buck, who hardly gets his 
family well collected before his jealousy is again excited by the 
impertinence of his tormentor, when another rush is made and 
the maneuver is repeated. Where there are a dozen or more nearly 
as large as himself, with twenty or thirty does to watch, the old 
fellow has a distressing time of it, and sometimes he gets so 
enraged that his defiant and threatening notes may be heard at 
a great distance. This note so nearly resembles that of a steam 
whistle, when pitched on a high key, that I have sometimes mis- 
taken the one for the other when half a mile away. This note 
is heard in the night much more than in the day time. This is 
19 
\ 
