BOS 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 22, 1895. 
THE DEER OF WESTERN TEXAS. 
Habits and Peculiarities, and the Best Means 
of Preservation and Protection. 
BY A. Y, "WALTON. 
[Concluded from, page AS6.] 
Size. 
The individuals of the common species vary very 
much in size and weight. The largest stag we have ever- 
seen of this species in Texas — and the fattest we have 
ever seen anywhere — was killed during the last winter 
by a young friend of ours some forty miles below this 
place; and three days after being killed, with the viscera, 
the head, the antlers, a large part of the neck, and the 
legs up to the knees and hock joints removed, weighed 
1151bs. Had all these members, excepting the viscera, 
been allowed to remain with the animal, he would have 
weighed, without doubt, 1601bs. 
The antlers of this stag were not large, but were very 
regular in the tines and handsome, having five points on 
each antler. Nearly all the points of the tines were 
broken, showing that he had been a great fighter. 
We do not think the average weight of deer of this 
species in Texas will reach lOOlbs., speaking only of 
stags. 
It is generally believed by hunters and naturalists that 
in their more Northern ranges deer grow larger than they 
do in the farther South. As a general rule this is doubt- 
less true, but there is a belt of country extending from 
about the mouth of Red River to, say, the north line of 
the State of Mississippi, embracing within its bounds the 
alluvial lands of the Red, Mississippi aud Yazoo rivers, 
where deer of the common species attain as great a size, 
we are satisfied, as they do anywhere else in the United 
States. 
We can account for this fact by stating that within the 
limits of this belt the conditions favorable for their de- 
velopment prevail in a marked degree. The weather is 
never very hot in summer, nor very cold in winter. Snow 
never remains long on the ground, and during the entire 
year there is an abundance of the most succulent and 
nourishing food. 
On one occasion I was present on a hunt in Texas 
Parish, La. , when a stag was killed by one of the party 
which weighed with the viscera removed 276lbs. We 
afterward killed one in Concordia Parish, in the eame 
State, which we are satisfied was larger still, but we had 
at the time no means of weighing it. 
These large stags, though there not uncommon, are yet 
the exception and not the rule, and the general average 
would be very much below the weight mentioned, 
although much above what it would be in this State. 
Dangerous Pets. 
All the Cervidoz under domestication seem to manifest 
a disposition to attack the human family. This is more 
especially the case with the males, although sometimes 
the females show the same propensity. 
We have never known tame deer or elk to attack 
horses, cows or any other domestic animals except dogs, 
and for these they seem to have an especial spite, Hav- 
ing, by domestication, lost their fear of man, they become 
as they grow old exceedingly dangerous, and all persons 
having in contemplation the keeping of the males of these 
animals as pets should be warned against them. 
A memorable instance of the ferocity of a stag of the 
common deer is well remembered by the writer, and the 
occurrence illustrates the truth of the statement just 
made. 
Upon the plantation in Mississippi where I was born 
and grew up to manhood was a herd of deer which had 
increased until they numbered some thirty head or more. 
There were several stags among them, but the monarch 
and master of them all was one of the largest of his kind 
we have ever seen. 
This stag had been presented to the family by a neigh- 
bor, who accompanied the gift with a warning as to his 
savage temper and dangerous propensity to fight. The 
deer were confined in a park, which was a well fenced 
woodland of some 200 acres— and when the antlers of the 
stags were in full growth, no one, unless he went on 
horseback, could enter this inclosure, except at the risk of 
Ms life. Most stags which are dangerous will fight only 
i i the fall of the year, but this one was ready for a fight 
at all times, and even when his antlers were soft and cov- 
e ed with the velvet, he would attack any one who came 
near him by striking powerful blows with his forefeet. 
On one occasion a storm of wind had blown down a 
tree, which fell upon the park fence, crushing it down; 
and the stag, in the height of his vigor and viciousness, 
along with some others made his escape. The other deer 
wandered off in different directions, but this fellow went 
straight to the negro quarters, some half mile off, and 
after chasing the children and old women into the houses 
established a state of siege. Just at this time the man- 
ager of the estate, riding by on his way to the field where 
the grown and able-bodied hands were at work, saw the 
deer and went in quest of the stockman and directed him 
to mount a horse and drive the animal back into the in- 
closure and repair the fence. The stag was afraid of a 
man on horseback and could be driven anywhere by a 
mounted person. Unfortunately the man disregarded the 
instructions given him, and endeavored to drive the ani- 
mal on foot. The manager in the meantime had passed 
on on his way to the field. The stockman was one of the 
finest specimens of physical manhood we have ever seen 
and was the terror of all the negroes in the neighborhood 
at wrestling and fighting. 
With the remark to one of the old women looking out 
of a door near by that "he thought he was man enough 
to drive that thing anywhere without a horse," he picked 
up a large stick and walked toward the animal. The 
dee.r, nothing daunted, advanced to meet the man: the 
hair on his body bristled up on end, ears drooped down 
hps drawn back in a vicious snarl and his head lowered 
for attack, like that of a bull about to join battle with an 
adversary. 
When he came within reach, the negro, seeing that he 
was not to be driven, dealt him a blow with the stick 
probably not with full force, but with a view to intimi- 
date him. The blow fell upon the deer's antlers and with 
a quick wrench of his head he twisted the club out of the 
man's grasp. The negro, now fully alive to the strength 
and wickedness of the beast, unluckily lost his head, at d 
instead of facing the animal and grasping him by the ant- 
lers, turned and attempted to run away. The infuriated 
8 tag instantly charged him at full speed, driving a long 
tine of one of the antlers through his thigh and knocking 
him down. He followed up the attack by falling upon 
his prostrate victim, goring him in the breast, making in 
one place a wound which extended to but luckily did not 
penetrate the lungs, and wound up the performance by 
driving the end of one of his antlers through the man's 
arm under the biceps muscle, where it remained, partly 
held by the small tine near the end of the antler, and be- 
sides the man had now succeeded in getting a grasp on 
the deer's antlers with both hands and held on for very 
life. Luckily, just at this moment the manager, having 
heard the negro's cry for help, came up at a gallop and 
threw himself from the saddle, and, being a powerful and 
fearless ( man, seized the stag by the hind legs and twisted 
him over on his back, and held him until help arrived 
from the field. 
All this time the antler remained fixed in the negro's 
arm, as neither he nor the manager dared let go, and it 
was not extracted until a hand-saw was brought and the 
antler severed from the stag's head as he lay. For a long 
time the negro's life was dispaired of, as there was great 
danger of tetanus supervening, but with careful nursing 
and the attention of a skillful surgeon he ultimately re- 
covered, and was ever after a wiser man in the ways of 
deer. 
The antlers of the Cervus virginianus, as far as our 
observation extends, are, as a general rule, larger in the 
State of Texas, and have a tendency to bear more points, 
than in any other locality with which we are acquainted. 
We have met with in some other States as large antlers 
as we ever saw here, but they are not so common, and we 
are inclined to believe that these large and many tined 
antlers are more numerous in west Texas than in the east- 
ern part of the State. 
Why this should be so we are unable to say. The native 
cattle, before having been crossed with the improved and 
smaller horned breeds, were noted for the large develop- 
ment of their horns, and even the pure bred cattle reared 
here show a marked tendency to an increase in the size 
of the horns beyond those of the parent stock. The law 
which governs in the case of cattle may operate in the 
same way with deer, and the causes for these effects may 
lie in surroundings of food and climate. 
The Antlers. 
We take up now the most curious and interesting of all 
of the phenomena in the natural history of the deer tribe: 
the casting, growth and renewal of the antlers. 
To one unacquainted with the fact that all — from the 
stately Cervus canadensis, with a length of antlers running 
sometimes to upward of 5ft., to the most diminutive 
of the species — shed and renew these appendages once a 
year, the statement would seem almost beyond belief; 
and the casual listener, who had never given the subject 
any attention, would in his doubts, when informed of 
the facts, be perhaps as pardonable as a friend of ours — 
a young limb of the law — who, on a hunting trip at the 
camp fire one night, bad the truths attending this habit 
of the deer family imparted to him by a waggish com- 
panion, less from a desire to increase the hearer's know- 
ledge of natural history than from a mischievous prompt- 
ing to see how he would take the statement. He listened 
patiently until the narrator was done and then his indig- 
nation gave vent in the following words: He said he had 
listened to long-winded hunting yarns and had held his 
peace, he had imbibed huge fish stories and made no 
reply; but there was a stopping-point somewhere to 
human credulity. When any man or set of men thought 
he was blanked fool enough to believe that deer shed 
and grew their antlers every year, the time had come 
when the felt called upon to inform the crowd that he 
was not the man they took him for. 
The whole subject has been treated thoroughly and ex- 
haustively by Judge J. D. Caton in hiB work, "Antelope 
and Deer of America," to which we take great pleasure in 
referring those who wish to examine the subject in its en- 
tirety. 
The same general law applies to all the Cervidce of 
America alike in the shedding and growth of the antlers, 
except that the larger species — the moose, elk, and the two 
species of reindeer— drop their antlers earlier in the season 
than the smaller species. 
The habits of the two species of which we are now treat- 
ing are in this particular, so far as we know, identical. 
The shedding of their antlers takes place, as a general 
rule, from the 15th of February to the 15th of March, 
varying with and dependent upon the mildness or severity 
of the weather preceding this period. 
When the time arrives for the antlers to fall, a crack 
occurs between the base of the antler and the bone of the 
skull upon which it had rested, and the antler either falls 
off of its own accord by its weight, or is shaken off by 
any slight jar or the motion of the animal's head. They 
very rarely fall off both together. We have scarcely ever 
found two mated antlers lying near together, and we have 
seen deer walking around with one antler on the head and 
the other missing. 
When the antler drops away from its place on the head 
there always occurs more or less of an effusion of blood, 
but this soon ceases and a new skin forms over the healed 
spot, and under this the blood vessels at once begin the 
deposition of bony matter which is to form the new antler. 
This skin protects the new antler and grows with it, and 
the deposit to form the antler "is true bone and does not 
differ materially from that substance in its analysis." 
As the antler grows, and from its very commencement, 
"it is surrounded not only with a periosteum, but with 
the dark-colored outer skin, covered with short hairs and 
called the velvet." 
The remarkable features are that not only this "peri- 
osteum" and the outer velvet skin, but also the antler it- 
self internally — for it is not entirely solid — are provided 
with blood-vessels, which grow with and nourish each, 
and when the proper time arrives and the antler has com- 
pleted its growth, the internal blood-vessels "contract 
and cease to act, and those on the outside, with the peri- 
osteum and velvet, are rubbed offjby the animal." 
This operation takes place in this locality about Oct, 1 
as a rule, earlier or later a little, as the season may be cool 
or warm. 
I have been so fortunate as to have witnessed on several 
occasions this rubbing off of the velvet. While it is going 
on the animal seems to be under the influence, if not of 
actual pain, of some great bodily uneasiness. He rushes 
at speed from bush to bush, rubbing his antlers violently 
against the bodies and brush of small trees, the verve; 
hanging in bloody shreds from his antlers and the blood 
dripping down upon his neck and head. The running is 
kept up and the rubbing continued until every vestige of 
the velvet is removed. After this process is gone through 
with we are satisfied that for some time the stags lie very 
close and do not stir about much in the day, evidently 
resting and recuperating from the unwonted strain to 
which they have been subjected. 
Laws for Deer Protection. 
What course is best and shall prevail in the amending 
of old statutes and the framing of new ones for the better 
protection and preservation of these animals within the 
State is rather difficult to determine. One thing is very 
clear at present, that if some means is not found under 
the law, and that soon, more effective than has been pro- 
vided in past years, we shall ere long be in the predica- 
ment of the man who proceeded to lock the stable door 
after the horse was stolen. We are no sensationalists 
when we sound the alarm in calling the attention of all 
true sportsmen to the truth of the condition, that not only 
deer, but all other kinds of game, in Texas are being 
rapidly exterminated. 
Partridges by the thousand are trapped, snared and 
shot, and shipped out of the State. Ducks and geese by 
the ten thousands go the same way, and deer and their 
skins are no exception to the rule. Where some few 
years ago wild turkeys were found by the hundred now 
not one is to be seen. 
Unless the knife is put to the root of the evil, and 
speedily, the matter will soon be past remedy. 
The present law framed for the protection of deer is 
defective — first, in that, in the southern half of the State 
at least, the open season commences a month and a half 
too soon and the does are permitted to be killed when 
their young are incapable of taking care of themselves, 
and, deprived of the protection of the dam, fall an easy 
prey to wild animals. 
Second. — The close season should not fall on Jan. 15, 
but a month later, because in western and southwestern 
Texas we often have no cold weather to speak of until 
after the new year, and game cannot be hunted and kept 
when killed until the weather becomes cold. Moreover, 
the stags begin to drop their antlers about Feb. 15, and 
that is the proper time to cease killing them. 
Third. — The law is lamentably defective and clearly 
unconstitutional in that it permits in certain counties the 
killing of game and forbids the killing in others during 
the close season. 
This is most assuredly a conferring of rights upon one 
part of a community and denying the same to another, 
and is clearly class legislation. 
Unfortunately, but in the nature of the case, in the 
thinly settled parts of the State, where the game is most 
abundant, even where the law is in force, no cne pays 
any attention to it; there is no public sentiment about the 
matter and the whole thing is a dead issue. But it is in just 
such localities that the deer-butcher and skin-hunter gets 
in his work and carries on bis trade of extermination, 
and where he will continue to flourish, if not stopped, 
until game ceases to exist. 
Other States have gone over this ground and found the 
remedy. Colorado was threatened with the extermina- 
tion of large game until the shipping out of the State of 
carcasses, heads or hides was forbidden under severe 
penalties. 
So, also, was the case in Arkansas, and in some other 
States. 
The remedy has proved efficacious for them and would 
most assuredly bring about the same results here. But 
there is no time to be lost in dealing with the evil. 
The average Texan legislator knows little, and cares 
less, about the habits of game, and is little competent to 
frame laws which will adequately protect. 
They should be educated to the proper point by the in- 
telligent sportsmen's clubs of the State, and through them 
an influence exerted upon our law-makers to bring about 
the necessary legislation in this matter before it becomes 
forever too late. 
Modes of Hunting. 
The modes of deer hunting in west Texas are, first, 
stalking or still-hunting, which to some is the most ex- 
citing and fascinating of all means of killing deer. This 
manner of hunting is generally followed in the early 
morning and late in the evening, when the deer are on 
their feeding grounds, and requires for success on the part 
of the hunter extreme caution, keen eyesight, steady 
nerves, and an intimate acquaintance with the habits and 
modes of feeding of the animals sought for. 
There is another mode of hunting them which, we are 
sorry to say, is still freely indulged in in spite of the 
penalties of the law — viz., fire-hunting — and of all the 
means of killing deer this is the most destructive. The 
hunter provides himself with a lamp with a strong re- 
flector so arranged that it is worn on the head on the out- 
side of and fitting around the hat, and on dark nights 
goes out upon the feeding grounds, and if they have not 
been hunted much the fascinated animals will stand and 
stare at the light until he comes close to them. In the 
dark the light of the lamp is reflected in the eyes of the 
deer, so that they appear like two small balls of fire, and 
when they seem about an inch or more apart the hunter 
knows he is close enough to shoot. This means of killing 
deer will always be the most difficult to stamp out under 
the law, as it is carried on in stealth and darkness, and 
the chances for identifying the guilty parties are small. 
The most exciting and fascinating of all modes of deer 
hunting — following them with horse and hounds — we have 
never seen resorted to much in western TexaB, and the 
fencing up of the lands with barbed wire has in late years 
altogether abolished it. 
My early manhood was passed in Louisiana and Missis- 
sippi, and as this mode of deer hunting was then and there 
to be indulged in to perfection, a short sketch of the pas- 
time may prove interesting: 
At the time we speak of the plantations in Louisiana 
were confined to the banks of the Mississippi River and the 
neighboring large lakes, and back of these, until you 
reached the plantations on the Tensas and Black river 3, 
there was an almost unbroken wilderness of forest aad 
canebrake from the Arkansas line to the mouth of Red 
River. This uninhabited strip varied in breadth from ten 
to twenty-five miles, and was, except when overflowed, 
which was not often in those days, one vast game pre- 
serve. Deer and game were abundant, and at the proper 
