410 
animal has been struck by a bullet, when 
bounding off he will generally lower his 
tail, pressing it down tightly, so that the 
white underneath shows but little. This 
is a sure sign that the game has been 
wounded. Indeed I have heard hunters 
go as far as to say that no wounded deer 
will ever show its flag when running off. 
Although generally true, this is not always 
the case. ‘Twice within my own experience 
I have followed a desperately wounded 
~animal for several hundred feet, noticing 
that its tail was held erect in the usual 
manner. . 
On one occasion at Kennebago lake I 
fired at a small buck with a .25-35 caliber 
rifle. Hestoodon the shore not more than fifty 
yards away, and at the report bounded off 
gracefully into the bushes with his flag 
flying astern. My companion, a Maine 
guide, noticing the fact, looked over with 
one of those sardonic grins kept for such 
occasions, and muttered something about, 
“Off fer Canada.” We had started the 
canoe down stream again, when off in the 
woods a deer coughed several times. I 
went ashore and walked in a couple of 
hundred feet, to find my buck shot through 
the lungs, and just expiring. No blood 
trail led from the water, nor could I discover 
even a trace of blood along the tracks. I 
have never since used a .25 caliber. 
It is a frequent sight to see a moose 
standing shoulder deep, soaking its hot 
hide for hours in the cooling water of some 
pond or mud hole, sometimes even sub- 
merging itself head and all beneath the 
surface. But although deer will often wade 
out into deep water, as a rule they prefer 
the shallows, and I have yet to see one 
completely submerged. 
Many of the more isolated camps in 
Maine consume considerable venison during 
the warmer months, making no secret of it 
either. It is, however, to their credit to 
say that no wasteful shooting is permitted. 
Moose are safely guarded, and no guide 
that I ever met would countenance the 
shooting of a moose in summer, even if 
meat were needed in camp. Probably 
nine out of ten of the deer killed around 
water at this season are yearlings or two- 
year-old does and spikehorns. So small, 
indeed, is the proportion of older animals 
RECREATION 
seen that one is often misled into believing 
that mature bucks comprise but an insignifi- 
cant minority of the deer population. 
This, however, is not the case: the bucks 
are plentiful, but wary. In all save the 
most unfrequented spots they become 
extremely cautious during daylight, rarely 
entering the water to feed until after dark. 
Early in September, when autumn’s 
first frost has nipped the water plants, the 
whitetails commence to forsake their old 
haunts of the summer. The food which 
supplied them so abundantly is now well 
nigh. exhausted. A few scattered lilies 
remain, perhaps, but they have grown 
tough and sere; so has the marsh grass. 
-Perchance on a cool morning patches of 
thin ice may be found in the sheltered 
coves. A few straggling deer still linger 
around the watercourses, but the great 
majority seek the hardwood timber which 
clothes the ridges and hillsides, feeding on 
leaves and tender twigs of deciduous 
trees. The fawns have now grown to be 
husky little fellows, thoroughly weaned, 
and, if necessary, able to shift for them- 
selves. Every. trace of velvet has been 
rubbed from the bucks’ antlers. The 
summer coat of red has been replaced by a 
warmer one of thick gray hair; and the 
whole race, feeling instinctively the first 
impulse of the approaching mating season, 
has become more restless and active, 
although less gregarious than in the 
warmer months. 
In October one rarely finds two big 
bucks feeding amicably together. They 
have become very unsociable fellows; and 
during the rutting season, which generally 
commences the latter part of the month, 
wage desperate battles for the possession 
of the does. In these head to head con- 
flicts two animals will sometimes interlock 
their antlers so securely that it becomes 
impossible for either to escape. Both 
eventually perish of starvation. Last fall 
a pair was found thus not far from where 
I camped at Fish Lake. One of them in 
desperate effort to escape had broken his 
neck; the other when found was so weak 
from dragging around his dead foe, and so 
emaciated from lack of food, that he died 
shortly afterward. 
A white-tail buck, unlike the wapiti, 
