CARIACUS VIRGIN I AN US. 
2 I 
Bits of newspapers, old rags, and pieces of boots and shoes are seized 
and disposed of with as much apparent eagerness as bread and but- 
ter or lily-pads; and I once saw a fawn eat a box of chewing tobacco 
given it by an unprincipled visitor. It died next day. 
The flesh of the Deer is juicy, tender, and well flavored, and is the 
most easily digested of meats. Its good qualities are too well known 
to require further comment. 
The hide is put to a variety of uses, the most important, with us, 
being the manufacture of gloves and moccasins. 
Our Deer are much larger than those of the South and Southwest, 
adult well -conditioned bucks averaging from 200 to 2 25 lbs. Avoir- 
dupois in weight, and exceptionally large ones being much heavier. 
Hence the Adirondack Deer is more than double the size and weight 
of the same species in Florida. 
I have taken great pains to ascertain, approximately, the number 
of Deer annually slain in this Wilderness, but with indifferent suc- 
cess. It is a low estimate to state that from five to eight hundred 
have been killed here yearly for the past ten years. How much 
longer their numbers can withstand this enormous drain is an open 
question. 
On the 3d of July, 1609, Samuel de Champlain ascended the River 
Richelieu and entered the lake that now bears his name. In his 
narrative of this memorable journey he speaks thus of the animals 
found upon the island at the foot of the lake : “ Here are a number 
of beautiful, but low islands filled with very fine woods and prairies, 
a quantity of game and wild animals, such as stags, deer, fawns, roe- 
bucks, bears, and other sorts of animals that come from the mainland 
to the said islands. We caught a quantity of them. There is also 
quite a number of Beavers, as well in the river as in several other 
streams which fall into it. These parts, though agreeable, are not 
inhabited by any Indians, in consequence of their wars.” * 
Documentary History of New York, vol. Ill, p. 5. 
