CARIACUS VIKGINIANUS. lO/ 



Order UNGULATA. Family Cervid.k. 



CARIACUS VIRGINIANUS (HocUU Gray. 



Common Deer ; Virginia Deer ; Red Deer ; White-tailed Deer. 



Deer are at present so abundant in most parts of the Adirondacks 

 that they outnumber all the other large mammals together, and this in 

 spite of the fact that during the present century alone hundreds of 

 them have perished of cold and starvation, hundreds have been killed 

 by wolves and panthers, and thousands b)- their natural enemy, man. 

 And there is ever\^ reason to believe that if proper game laws are 

 enforced, their numbers will not materially decrease. 



This beautiful and graceful animal, by far the fleetest of our mam- 

 malia, roams over all parts of the Wilderness, being found high upon 

 the mountain sides, as well as in the lowest valleys and river bot- 

 toms. It frequents alike the densest and most impenetrable thickets, 

 and the open beaver meadows and frontier clearings. During the 

 summer season, which is here meant to apply to the entire period of 

 bare ground, loosely reckoning, from the first of May to the first of 

 November, its food consists of a great variety of herbs, grasses, marsh 

 and aquatic plants, the leaves of many deciduous trees and shrubs, 

 blueberries, blackberries, other fruits that grow within its reach; and. 

 largely, of the nutritious beech-nut. While snow covers the ground, 

 which it commonly does about half the year, the fare is necessarily 

 restricted; and it is forced to subsist chiefly upon the twigs and buds 

 of low deciduous trees and shrubs, the twii^s and foliage of the arbor 

 vitai. hemlock, and balsam, and a few mosses and lichens. In winters 

 succeeding a good yield of nuts the mast constitutes its staple article 

 of diet, and is obtained by following the beech ridges and pawing up 

 the snow beneath the trees. 

 8 



