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 him 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, 
Iam surprised that their range is circumscribed by an imaginary 
line, beyond which they cannot pass more than if the boundary 
were a Chinese wall. 
