VIRGINIAN DEER. 
225 
attached to be separated from the skull. Indeed, we have seen a horn 
shot off in the middle by a ball, whilst the stump still continued firmly 
seated on the skull. The rutting season continues about two months, 
the largest and oldest does being earliest sought for, and those of eighteen 
months at a later period. About the month of January, the bucks 
drop their horns, when, as if conscious of having been shorn of their 
strength and honours, they seem humbled, and congregate peaceably 
with each other, seeking the concealment of the woods, until they can 
once more present their proud antlers to the admiring herd. Immediately 
after the rutting season, the bucks begin to grow lean. Their incessant 
travelling during the period of venery— their fierce battles with their 
rivals, and the exhaustion consequent on shedding and replacing their 
horns by a remarkably rapid growth, render them emaciated and feeble 
for sev^eral months. About three weeks after the old antlers liaA^e been 
.shed, the elevated knobs of the young horns make their appearance. 
They are at first soft and tender, containing numerous blood-vessels, and 
the .slightest injury causes them to bleed freely. They possess a conside- 
rable degree of heat, grow rapidly, branch off into several ramifications, 
and gradually harden. They are covered with a soft, downy skin, and 
are now in what is called “ velvet.” When the horns are fully grown, 
which is usually in July or August, the buck shows a restless propensity 
to rid himself of the velvet covering, which has now lost its heat, and 
become dry : hence he is constantly engaged in rubbing his horns against 
bushes and saplings, often destroying the trees by wounding and tearing 
the bark, and by twisting and breaking off the tops. The system of bony 
development now ceases altogether, and the horns become smooth, hmd, 
and solid. 
The does are fattest from November to January. They gradually get 
thinner as the season of parturition approaches, and grow lean whilst 
suckling their young. 
The young are, in Carolina, produced, in the month of April ; young 
does, however, seldom yean till May or June. In the Northern States, 
they bring forth a little later, whilst in Florida and Texas the period is 
earlier. It is a remarkable, but well ascertained fact, that in Alabama 
and Florida, a majority of the fawns are produced in November. The 
doe conceals her young under a prostrate tree-top, or in a thick covert of 
grass, visiting them occasionally' during the day, especially in the morn- 
ing, evening, and at night. The young fawms, when only a few^ days old, 
are often found in so sound a sleep that we have, on .several occasions, 
seen them taken up in the arms before they became conscious that they 
wrere captives. They are easily^ domesticated, and attach themselves to 
VOL, II. — 29 . 
