458 



REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



Diagnostic characters. — Size comparatively small; antlers curv- 

 ing first outward and back, with the tips turned forward and to- 

 ward each other; not diverging into equal branches. 



Description. — Color of adults reddish brown above in summer; 

 belly, inner side of legs and under part and tip of tail, white ; chin 

 with a black band; in winter grayish above. Young, spotted with 

 white. Skull and teeth comparatively small and antlers slender. 



Range. — Formerly abundant from the region of the Great Lakes, 

 central New York and New England, to Florida and Louisiana, 

 and from the Atlantic west to Kansas. Slightly different geo- 

 graphic races are found beyond the limits outlined above. 



In Indiana deer were once so abundant as to be a nuisance, and 

 the pioneer farmers were often compelled to kill them to protect 

 their crops. It is said that they used to mingle with the domestic 

 cattle that were turned out to graze and learned to come to them on 

 hearing he sound of their bells. 



Judge D. D. Banta, in the history of Johnson County, tells us 

 that one of the early settlers, Joab Woodruff, killed 370 deer in the 

 fall of 1822. As late as 1834 a herd was chased from near Franklin, 

 over what is now part of Indianapolis and back into Johnson 

 County, where six were killed. : In the early forties a grand drive 

 for wolves and deer in Warren County resulted in killing 160 deer, 

 while an equal number escaped. (History of Warren County.) 



It is difficult to determine the time at which deer disappeared 

 from the different sections of the State, but they were everywhere 

 the last of the large game to be exterminated. Butler states that 

 they were still found in Ripley County "only a few years ago" 

 (written in 1893). According to W. J. Ward, a drove of three were 

 seen and two of them killed in the Eel River bottoms in the latter 

 50 's. In Lagrange County the last one was killed in 1859 (Theo 

 P. Upson). Dr. Haymond, in 1869, doubts whether there is a single 

 deer in Franklin County. In Warrick County the last wild deer 

 was killed in 1874 (Bob White). In the History of Allen County, 

 edited by T. B. Helm, it is stated that some are still (1880) to be 

 found in a large marsh in Jackson township in that county. In 

 Wabash County they were still abundant in 1854 (County history, 

 by T. B. Helm). In Steuben County they have not been seen since 

 about 1865. In Nol^le County th(\v disappeared bet\ve(ni 1853 and 

 1867 (Van Gorder). The swamps of the Kankakee Valley and the 

 cypress swamps in Knox County were the last retrc^ats of the deer 

 m this State. According to l^utler (1894) one was killed in Jasper 

 (*ounty in 1890 and one was scuni in N(nvton County \\\ 1891. The 



