808 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 
would continue so and would be prolific through succeeding gen- 
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, Ifind in the Museum of Compara- 
tive Zoology of Harvard College a mounted specimen of this Acapulco Deer marked 
“Cervus Mexicanus” and referring to “ Hassler Expedition,” and giving Acapulco 
as its location. Cervus Mexicanus 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 Zodlogical 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. Acapulcensis, 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 Mexicanus 
been long appropriated to a variety of the Virginia deer, I should have selected it for 
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. 
