THE AMERICAN DEER. 225 
The deer has usually but one, never more than two 
fawns at a birth. In the southern parts of the State of 
New York these are for the most part dropped in May 
and June, but further north, somewhat earlier in the 
year. During the rutting season the males are bold and 
extremely pugnacious among themselves, although not 
like the Red Deer capable of attacking men without 
provocation. The ery of the deer when alarmed is a 
quick, tremulous whistling sound, accompanied by a 
stamp of the foot; when mortally wounded they will at 
times utter a faint bleat like that of a young calf. 
In its habits the American Deer is, for the most part, 
except in the vast prairies of the West, a wcodland 
haunter, as, according to Catallus, was the deer of Greece 
and Asia Minor, which, in his comprehensive and 
picturesque compound he describes as sylvicultrix, the 
haunter of the woodlands, and in this respect it differs 
from the Red Deer of Great Britain, which prefers the 
difficult and craggy mountain-tops, or the far-extended 
downs covered with waving heather to the dark pine 
woods of the Scottish Highlands, or the beautiful oak 
coppices of Devonshire. 
__By law the killing of the American Deer has gene- 
rally been restricted in most States to the months between 
August and December, both inclusive, but so rapid is 
the progress of annihilation going on with these beauti- 
ful animals that in some counties of New York the only 
months during which it is lawful to take them, are Sep- 
10* 
