THE WILD LIFE OF LAKE SUPERIOR 



185 



It may be of interest to note that the 

 original buck weighed about 150 pounds 

 and possessed a rather extraordinary set 

 of antlers, spreading 26 inches, with the 

 terminal points much farther apart than 

 any other I have ever seen. 



VELVET ON ANTLERS WAS SNOW-WHITE 



The velvet on the antlers of both bucks 

 was snow-white, giving them a most 

 statuesque appearance amid the green 

 foliage of the forest. 



The eyes of the native albinos are a 

 very light gray-blue, while the doe from 

 the southern portion of the State has the 

 usual red eyeballs. The lack of any pig- 

 ment in the layers of the retina of this 

 latter individual discloses the red blood- 

 vessels characterizing most albinos, mak- 

 ing it very susceptible to a bright light. 



The second buck differed from the 

 original one in being somewhat larger, 

 but had only two long spikes of about 

 eighteen inches, the left one slightly 

 forked each season. 



The albino deer shed their white sum- 

 mer coat at the usual time, and it is re- 

 placed by a heavier and thicker covering, 

 though not quite so long as the winter 

 gray coat of the normal deer. The skin 

 is a light pink, showing plainly through 

 the thin summer coat, in contrast with the 

 almost black epidermis of the other deer. 

 The hoofs and skin of the nostrils are a 

 pearl-gray, instead of black, while the 

 velvet on the growing antlers is white, 

 but when freed from this covering the 

 antlers have the usual brownish-yellow 

 coloring, the only exterior part of the 

 white deer resembling the normal ones. 



THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO PERPETUATE 

 ALBINO DEER 



Up to the present time, the effort to 

 perpetuate an albinistic strain has been 

 largely confined to white mice and rats, 

 white rabbits, and poultry, for in the 

 larger animals this occasional recession 

 from normal only results in the killing 

 of such conspicuous objects, man and 

 predatory animals being alike responsible. 

 Moreover, when occasionally captured, it 

 rarely happens a mate can be found of 

 similar color. 



This white phase is found in all organic 

 life, as, for instance, elk, deer, porcupine 

 (see page 121), beaver, muskrats, squir- 



rels, many wild-fowl, robins, swallows, 

 crows, blackbirds, woodcock, and in 

 frogs, fish, insects, and several forms of 

 plant life, due to the absence of pigment. 

 This deficiency in coloring affects only 

 the outer skin, the hair, or feathers, as 

 well as the retina of the eyes and the 

 hoofs of most quadrupeds. Partial al- 

 binism is frequent, and in New Bruns- 

 wick I saw a number of deer splotched 

 with white of various patterns, giving 

 some of them a strikingly odd appear- 

 ance. 



The writer has been under the impres- 

 sion that the first offspring of albinos 

 were usually white, and on and after the 

 third generation uniformly so, following 

 the rule in silver and black foxes. Several 

 biologists, however, have contended that 

 ''albinism being a purely recessive char- 

 acter among mammals, albinos should 

 breed true from the first." That this con- 

 clusion is sometimes a mistake was shown 

 a year ago, when one of the white does 

 bore a normally colored fawn, the white 

 buck being the only male in the inclosure. 



There are many nature lovers, vitally 

 interested in the efforts of science to pro- 

 duce and perpetuate new variants of ex- 

 isting species, who will be gratified to 

 know that as time goes on specimens of 

 this new and beautiful phase of the white- 

 tail may find representation in other parts 

 of the country. The various members 

 of this original albino colony are shown 

 herein at different ages, in varied atti- 

 tudes, and in contrasting seasons. 



CHAPTER IX 



MOOSE ON ST. IGNACE ISLAND 



Diagonally opposite Marquette and on 

 the north shore is an interesting and 

 beautiful group of islands, the largest of 

 which, St. Ignace, occupies the entrance 

 to Nipigon Bay, into which flows the 

 most famous of Canadian trout streams. 



On a trip west of Port Arthur, in 1916, 

 for the purpose of studying the moose 

 along the international waters between 

 Minnesota and Ontario, I was told that 

 several of the larger islands near the 

 Nipigon contained an incredible number 

 of moose, but as at this point the line of 

 the Canadian Pacific follows the shore, 

 in sight of the islands, the report seemed 

 somewhat doubtful. However, in the 



