FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 265 



and cannot cut and masticate their food. Many report that more old 

 bucks are fcund than old does. For this it seems difficult to account. 



There is a great diversity of opinion as to the age attained by deer 

 in a free state, and it does not seem probable that the question can ever be 

 definitelv and positively settled. Some experienced woodsmen place it 

 as low as ten years; others as high as twenty or even twenty-five. Mr. 

 Thomas Blagden. of Washington, D. C, while hunting at Wolf Pond, in 

 1874. captured two fawns, which he took home. The buck became so 

 uglv that he was obliged to kill him; but the doe lived to be twentv and 

 then died by accident, being perfectly hale md hearty up to the last day. 

 He informs me that it is his opinion that many deer in freedom attain 

 this age. 



There seems to be also some diversity of opinion as to what consti- 

 tutes good food for deer. There seems no doubt that in summer they eat 

 all kinds of grasses, the leaves and twigs of trees and shrubs, and Judge 

 Caton, in his admirable work on The Deer of America, adds, " at least a 

 great variety of weeds, especially the bitter sorts, the seeds of grasses, the 

 fruits of trees, wild apples, plums and cherries, acorns, and all sorts of 

 berries and rose apples, and all sorts of grain and seeds to which they have 

 access." ' The Virginia deer alone seems capable of masticating the 

 hickory nut." He finds that for winter feeding the best thing of all is 

 " a fodder consisting mostly of weeds, no matter how large and coarse, 

 well cured." Man}- of these foods are not to be found in the Adirondacks at 

 any time, and during our winters, with from 2 to 4 or 5 feet of snow on the 

 ground, the food is practically limited to the bark and boughs of the ever- 

 green trees — cedar, spruce, hemlock and balsam. As early as about March 

 1st, and while the snow is still deep, to this dietary may be added the buds 

 and twigs of the soft maple, of which the deer are very fond and which 

 must be very nutritious. It is generally admitted that deer will winter 

 well on these if the supply is sufficient, except that some guides contend 

 that they will never eat balsam if any of the other branches can be 

 obtained, that they do not thrive on it, and some even go so far as to say 

 that it is absolutely poisonous to them. I do not believe that there is any 

 good ground for the latter opinion, and many good observers are of the 

 contrary opinion — that they do just as well on balsam as on any of the 

 other kinds of food above mentioned. 



The deer sometimes eat the witch-hopple, and the general opinion 

 seems to be that this is not good for them. In the winter of 1902-03 Mr. 

 Blagden had, in his deer-park, near Saranac Inn, forty-eight deer in an 

 enclosure of thirty-one acres, and they were artificially fed, in part. He 



