266 TENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



lost eight bucks and one doe. " The bucks were fenced off in a marsh by 

 themselves, with one exception." The " only way I can account for losing 

 so many bucks was from their drinking the swamp water, or from eating 

 the witch-hopple with the sleet frozen to it. This latter reason, by the 

 way, is a notion I have gained through the old guides, who believe in it, 

 and to it I am something of a convert, because the deer have diarrhoea 

 after such conditions." During last winter, in the same park, he lost only 

 two deer, both does, one from old age, having lost all her teeth, and the 

 other from having her back broken by a limb of a tree falling on her during 

 a heavy wind. Mr. Blagden also finds that deer " care more for the rank- 

 est weeds than the choicest grass. After experimenting with all kinds of 

 hay I found they prefer alfalfa to all others." 



That deer in the wild state are subject to epidemic of infectious dis- 

 eases, which carry them off in large numbers, there can be no doubt. Judge 

 Caton, at page 341 of his work, already referred to, says, " Such accounts 

 as I have noticed have, however, been confined to the Virginia deer," 

 which is precisely the only variety that we have in the Adirondacks. In 

 the following page he describes what has been called " big jaw," commencing 

 with a swelling under the lower jaw and eventually involving the whole 

 head below the eyes. 



Deer in the Adirondacks have been reported as sickening and dying 

 with what resembles " foot and mouth disease." It is reported that both 

 these diseases, which are almost undoubtedly infectious and very likely 

 contagious, are accompanied by diarrhoea. Careful inquiry among those 

 who have seen the dead deer this winter, in the Moose River region, have 

 uniformly resulted in the statement that no such conditions existed. 



We come now to consider the cause of death of the four deer that 

 were sent us for examination, with the supposition that the other deer 

 which died in the Moose River region succumbed to the same cause that 

 these did. I have little to add to what Dr. Pearce says. While many of 

 the findings are negative they are not unimportant. These deer did not 

 die of "' big-jaw," or " foot and mouth disease," or tuberculosis, or any 

 infectious or contagious disease of any kind, and it is certainly important 

 to establish that fact. 



They did not die of starvation alone. These four stomachs contained 

 from 5.5 to 13.2 pounds each of evergreen twigs and leaves. In the first 

 stomach many of these had hot been affected by the digestive process at all 

 and specimens sent to your office were there identified as being spruce and 

 hemlock, so that the question of the poisonous character of balsam is not 

 involved. And again the degree of emaciation was not as great as would 



