THE DEER TRIBE 265 
a There is no particular reason why the 
deer of cold countries should not be inter- 
changed; they seem to have the natural 
adaptability of oxen. But it is not a little 
surprising that the species from warm climates 
should flourish in damp and cold ones. The 
axis deer would be a real addition to the 
fauna of the great European forests, if it is 
found that it survives the winter snows 
without some form of artificial shelter. No 
one seems to have considered the advisa- 
bility of introducing the mule-deer into the 
Central European woods. It is a much finer 
animal than the fallow buck, and the venison 
is excellent. In these woods where fallow 
deer are preserved in a wild state, as on 
many of the German Emperor’s sporting- 
estates, the mule-deer would be a far more 
ornamental animal. Few people know what 
immense herds of red and fallow deer, as 
well as of wild boars, still exist, under 
careful preservation, in the forests of the 
great German, Austrian, and Russian princes, 
pe) 4 ; ns Via 
i , and in the royal forests of their respective 
YOUNG HIMALAYAN MUSK-DEER countries. 
The male carries a pouch on the abdomen, from which the musk is When the Kaiser holds his great Court 
obtained. There are no antlers hunting-parties, to which the guests all come 
dressed in the uniform of the Order of 
St. Hubert, as many as 200 deer are shot in a day. They are driven past the guns by 
beaters. After the day’s sport is over all the antlers are wreathed with boughs of spruce fir, 
and the stags laid out like rabbits after an English battue. 
It is rather surprising that only one species of deer has been entirely domesticated — vzz. 
the Reindeer. Deer’s meat is as highly prized as that of any other game, perhaps even more 
so. There is almost no part of the animal which is not useful. The horns are valuable for 
knife-handles, and always command a good price; they were prized even by prehistoric man, 
who converted them into pick-axes, and made spear-heads and daggers of them. The leather of 
the hide makes the softest and best of all hunting-garments: the American Indian or trapper 
always wears, or used to wear, a deer-skin shirt and deer-skin leggings, made as exquisitely soft 
as chamois leather by a process known to the squaws. At the present time all the best gloves 
are made of doe-skin; they are far the most costly of any gloves. Doe-skin breeches are 
also a luxurious garment to ride in. For ornamental rugs few skins beat those of the Dappled 
Deer, laid on the floor of some finely furnished hall or room. 
Thus we have the curious spectacle of the wild men of the Far North, the Lapps and 
Ostiaks, taming and keeping in domestication great herds of deer, milking them, using them as 
beasts of draught, and feeding on their flesh, while far more civilised races in the South have 
not taken the trouble to do so. The reason is not easy to surmise, unless it be that the idea 
of making use of the Deer Tribe solely as beasts of the chase was so rooted in the European 
ruling races, and their kings and nobles, that the agriculturist never had a chance of trying 
to tame and use them for other purposes. It is certain that during the Middle Ages law and 
custom made any such attempt quite impossible. The deer were a valuable sporting asset, so 
hedged round with an atmosphere of feudal privilege, that to convert them into something 
useful to the common people would have been regarded as an insult to the powers that were. 
