Mammals The Fawn 
join our forests preserves cannot protect their crops 
with fences of ordinary height from visits of this deer. 
The stags when hard-pushed are desperate fighters. 
However, their great antlers are used chiefly in 
fighting rivals when competing for does. 
The growth of the stag’s antlers is one of the most 
remarkable occurrences in animal physiology. The 
antlers are shed each year, and grow anew in some- 
thing less than three months. They are at first 
covered with the ‘‘velvet,’”’ which is a skin supplied 
with blood-vessels to carry nourishment to the grow- 
ing tissue. As the antlers complete their growth, 
the blood supply to the velvet is checked, and the 
velvet withers and ravels off. Stags are very shy 
during the period when their antlers are growing, 
for they are helpless if attacked, since their new 
antlers are extremely sensitive and tender. 
HOUSE AND RANGE 
If deer are kept in a park, a dry, well-drained 
shelter-shed, kept well-bedded, will prove sufficient. 
There should be plenty of fresh clean water in the 
park or enclosure, so that the deer may bathe as 
well as drink. A large park is needed if a herd of 
both sexes are kept together. If the park is small, 
one stag with several does will thrive in it; but close 
quarters often leads the stags to fight each other, 
they are especially quarrelsome at the beginning of 
autumn. 
FOOD 
In a park the deer find the grass and foliage suffici- 
ent food; in addition they need a slab of rock salt to 
lick, and dry, clean, large bones to chew, if the shed 
antlers are taken away. In winter hay, oats, apples, 
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