T1J1<] VIK(;iNIA DKKR. 



459 



author spent a month coHeeting in the Kankakee Valley in 1905 

 and could learn of no records for that i)art of the State more re- 

 cent than those given above. 



Chansler states, on the authority of Mr. N. B. Edwards, that 

 the last wild deer were seen near Red Cloud in Knox County in 

 1893. The writer was told by several Knox County citizens, whose 

 names he does not now remember, that deer were seen in the cypress 

 swamps in the southeastern part of that county as recently as 1906. 

 However, these were probably animals that had escaped from a 

 private deer park owned by Mr. Thomas Johnson near Decker. 

 They had disappeared over most of the State much earlier. Sev- 

 eral accounts say that they were diminishing in numbers, though 

 still common, in the period from 1830 to 1840. By the latter date 

 they were doubtless becoming rare in many places and were exter- 

 minated in most of the counties previous to 1860. 



Habits. — The ability of deer to exist in places where bison and 

 elk have long ago been exterminated by man, is due chiefly to their 

 retiring habits. Where deer are hunted much they hide away in 

 the most inaccessible mountain retreats, the densest thickets or the 

 most impenetrable swamps. In such places they rest during the 

 day and are active only at night. 



Where they are afforded adequate protection from hunters, as 

 in New York, New England and some other States, they become 

 more tame and rapidly increase in numbers. In Maine it is said 

 that they have again become numerous where they were once all 

 but exterminated. Reasonable protection, together with setting- 

 aside forest and swamp land for permanent reservations, would 

 have produced the same result in Indiana. 



The mating season is in the fall, from late October to about the 

 first of December. The males at this time lose their timidity and 

 come out in the open. At this season they do not hesitate to attack 

 a man on slight provocation. 



The young are born in late April, I\Iay or June. Usually there 

 are two, and the mother seeks the most secluded retreat for their 

 birth-place. For several weeks they are quite weak and do not 

 travel far, but by the middle of summer they become strong and 

 active. The first coat is spotted. The second summer the males or 

 ''spike bucks" are equipped with straight, unb ranched antlers 

 which grow rapidly and are shed at the end of the season like those 

 of the wapiti. The second year there are two prongs and another 

 is added each year until maturity. 



The Virginia deer can subsist in winter on such coarse feed as 



