38 EAISING DEER IN THE UNITED STATES. 



present restrictions on the sale of deer and elk are maintained, low 

 prices are likely to prevail. Live elk sold at forced sale have been 

 known to net the owners less than $25 a head, but conditions would 

 soon change if the laws concerning the sale and shipment of venison 

 were generally made favorable for producing it in preserves. The 

 demand for breeding stock would grow and increase the cost of start- 

 ing, as well as the returns from the business. 



VICIOTJSNESS OF THE MALE ELK. 



Notwithstanding the viciousness of the male elk in the rutting 

 season, he is ordinarily docile, probably more so than the buck of the 

 common deer. Male elk have frequently been trained to harness 

 and driven in public. Lorenzo Stratton trained a pair to harness 

 and began exhibiting them at the Cattaraugus County (N. Y.) fair in 

 1853. They were a feature of the fair for several years, until he sold 

 them in Europe. Exhibitions of trotting elks were common at county 

 fairs in the Middle West a few years ago. W. H. Barnes, of Sioux 

 City, Iowa, trained a pair and drove them harnessed to a light vehicle. 

 He afterwards taught one of them to dive from a platform 30 feet 

 high into a pool of water, and later he exhibited the animal in this 

 act to admiring crowds in Europe. 



The intractability of the male elk is not exceptional among deer 

 kept in confinement, but his great size, his long, sharp-pointed antlers, 

 and his thick skin, that renders him insensible to pain, make him 

 much more formidable than the common deer. Several tragedies 

 connected with attempts to domesticate the elk are matters of history. 

 One recorded by Judge Caton occurred in his park. 6 Another took 

 place at Bull City, Osborne County, Kans., October 12, 1879, in which 

 Gen. H. C. Bull was instantly killed, two other men mortally 

 wounded, and a fourth seriously injured by the attacks of an infuri- 

 ated elk that had previously been regarded as tame and docile. 



Deer and elk that are wild and unconfined will, under nearly all 

 circumstances, run from man. When wounded they have been known 

 to attack hunters; but it is unlikely that an uninjured wild bull elk 

 would attack a human being even during the rut. The tame or par- 

 tially tame animals that have become familiar with man are the ones 

 to be feared. However, not all individuals become ill-tempered or 

 vicious. 



It should be borne in mind that all deer when confined in small in- 

 closures and partly domesticated are likely to become dangerous 



° Since the above paragraph was written Farmers' Bulletin No. 330, Deer 

 Farming in the United States, has been issued, and an unusual demand for deer 

 and elk for breeding purposes has developed. Consequently prices are consider- 

 ably higher. 



& The Antelope and Deer of America, p. 285, 1877. 



