HYBRIDITY OF THE CERVIDZ.. 815 
me that when a female has once bred to a male of another species 
she becomes debauched and so demoralized that she is inclined 
to receive anything that comes along, no matter how repulsive 
he may have been at first. Had not this Acapulco doe first 
allowed herself to be seduced by the Ceylon buck, which so much 
resembled her in size, form, and color, and with whom she was 
so well acquainted, I very much doubt whether she would ever 
have received the attentions of the Virginia buck, nearly three 
times her size, and differing from her in so many important par- 
ticulars. But once having submitted to the Ceylon buck, she 
coquetted a while with the larger species, and finally submitted. 
Still I hope she has virtue enough left to return to her own 
species, now that she has an opportunity. 
While it is undoubtedly true that the sexes of the same species 
will, as a general rule, associate together when they can, and 
manifest no inclination to interbreed with a nearly allied species, 
yet we sometimes see unnatural attachments between opposite 
sexes of different genera even, in domestication at least, which 
seem to overcome the natural repugnance which ordinarily pre- 
vails. 
A remarkable instance of this once occurred in my grounds. 
When I had but one male elk, with several females, a strong at- 
tachment grew up between the buck and a two-year old Durham 
heifer, so that he abandoned the society of the female elk, as the 
heifer did that of the cows in the same inclosure with which she 
had been reared, and they devoted themselves exclusively to each 
other. When they laid down in the shade to ruminate, they 
were always found close together, and when one got up to feed, 
the other would immediately follow. They kept away by them- 
selves, always avoiding the society of all the other animals. 
Whenever the heifer was in season, which occurred quite regu- 
larly every month, she accepted the embraces of the elk, without 
showing an inclination to seek the other cattle ; nor did this seem 
to be the result of any constraint. This intercourse continued 
throughout the summer, during the entire growth of the antlers 
of the elk, but unfortunately he was killed before the rut com- 
menced with the female elk. It is hardly necessary to state that 
no impregnation ever occurred from her intercourse with the elk, 
and so far as this instance may go to establish it, we may con- 
clude that the constitutional differences of the elk and the cow 
are so great that they cannot successfully interbreed. 
Probably no intelligent naturalist of the present day would 
