358 Proceedings of the 



to the southward live promiscuously among the woods, as well as 

 in the plains, and along the banks of rivers, lakes, &c ,the whole 

 year. The old buck-horns are very large, with many branches, 

 and always drop off in the month of November, which is about 

 the time they begin to approach the woods. This is undoubtedly 

 wisely ordered by Providence, the better to enable them to 

 escape from their enemies through the woods, otherwise 

 they would become an easy prey to wolves and other beasts, 

 and be liable to get entangled among the trees, even in ranging 

 about in search of food. The same opinion may probably be 

 admitted of the southern deer, which always reside among 

 the woods, but the northern deer, though by far the smallest 

 in this country, have much the largest horns, and the branches 

 are so long, and at the same time spread so wide, as to make 

 them more liable to be entangled among the underwoods than 

 any other species of deer that I have noticed. The young 

 bucks in those parts do not shed their horns so soon as the 

 old ones. I have frequently seen them killed at or near 

 Christmas, and could discover no appearance of their horns 

 being loose. The does do not shed their horns till the 

 summer, so that when the buck's horns are ready to drop off, 

 the horns of the does are all hairy, and scarcely come to their 

 full growth." This certainly is the testimony of a man appa- 

 rently conscientious and desirous to tell the truth, with no ob- 

 ject to do otherwise, and, moreover, with ample opportunity of 

 getting at the truth, and with his attention specially directed to 

 the subject, all which of course make the matter only more 

 embarrassing. Next comes Colonel Smith : " The males drop 

 their horns after the rutting season in November, but the fe- 

 males, if gravid, keep theirs till May ; under other circum- 

 stances, they drop theirs at the same time with the males ; the 

 new ones are eight months growing, not being complete till 

 August." The anomaly to which I am alluding appears, how- 

 ever, to have struck him as well as Hearn, for he offers the 

 following explanation of the rein-deer shedding its horns so 

 early as November : — " The horns of the rein-deer, indeed, 

 drop in winter, but this takes place only at a period when the 

 snow is already not only very deep, but frozen hard, and even 

 then we see that the females, when gravid, and therefore in 



