320 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 
frequently pulls down the twigs bearing the dry oak leaves, and 
eats them with apparent relish, though he is rarely seen to pick 
up those which have fallen after maturity. If deprived of ar- 
boreous food he will keep healthy and fat on grass alone. In 
winter he will scrape away deep snow with his feet to obtain the 
grass beneath it, and by some unexplained means seems always 
to select the best places. 
I feed my herd of Elk in winter almost exclusively on corn 
(maize) stalks, and they will keep fat upon them if only they get 
enough, though they be compelled to eat all the stalks not larger 
than one’s finger. They are promiscuous consumers, though great 
feeders, requiring as much to keep them as the same number of 
our black cattle ; but they will eat greedily damaged hay, which 
the cattle or horses would reject. After we commence feeding 
them in winter they stop foraging for themselves, until their 
rations are stopped, and they are forced to it by two or three 
days’ fasting. They make no attempt in the winter to strip the 
bark from even the wild apple or the poplar, although they do 
this sometimes, though rarely, in summer. In a very few years 
they killed out all the shrubbery in their park, and keep the 
trees thoroughly trimmed as far as they can reach. J am not 
aware that they ever eat the leaves or twigs of evergreens, nor 
have I ever known them to eat the parasitic lichens which fre- 
quently grow upon the trees, or the mosses found on decaying 
logs. They are very fond of all sorts of grain, and it is astonish- 
ing to see what an enormous ear of maize they will take and 
crunch up at once. Even the cob, after the corn has all been 
removed, I have never known them to reject. They soon learn 
to come to the call of one who feeds them, in the latter part of 
the season, but in the summer, when the grass is sweet and ten- 
der, they are more indifferent, and may refuse to answer. 
Both species of Caribou live largely upon a variety of lichens 
found in their respective ranges, and indeed these seem indis- 
pensable to their well-being. At least it is so with the European 
reindeer, for wherever they are kept in gardens or menageries 
the mosses from their native ranges have to be imported for 
them. This, however, is not their only food. They, too, feed 
upon the trees and shrubbery, and upon the grasses, wherever 
they find them. The experienced hunter follows them through 
the bush with great facility by noticing where they have cropped 
the twigs or stripped the moss from the trees in passing, and by 
careful inspection will judge something of their number, and 
