226 
VIRGINIAN DEER. 
their keepers in a few hours. A friend possesses a young deer that, 
when captured, during the last summer, was placed with a she goat, 
which reared it, and the parties still live in habits of mutual attachment. 
We have seen others reared by a cow. A goat, however, becomes the 
best foster-mother. They breed in confinement, but we have found them 
troublesome pets. A pair that we had for several years, were in the 
habit of leaping into our study through the open window, and when the 
sashes were down they still bounced through, carrying along with them 
the shattered gla.sse.s. They also seemed to have imbibed a vitiated and 
morbid taste, licked and gnawed the covers of our books, and created con- 
fusion among our papers. No shrub in the garden, however valuable to 
us, was sacred to them; they gnawed our carriage harness, and finally 
pounced upon our young ducks and chickens, biting off their heads and 
feet, leaving the body untouched. 
The doe does not produce young until she is two years old, when she 
has one fawn. If in good order, she has two the following year. A very 
large and healthy doe often produces three, and we were present at Goose 
Creek when an immense oncj killed by J. W. Audubox, was ascertained, 
on being opened, to contain four large and well formed fawns. The 
average number of fawns in Carolina is two, and the cases where three 
are produced are nearly as numerous as those in which young does pro- 
duce only one at a birth. 
The wild doe is attached to her young, and its bleat will soon bring her 
to its side, if she is within hearing. The Indians use a stratagem, by- 
imitating the cry of the fawn, with a pipe made of a reed, to biing up 
the mother, which is easily killed by their arrows. AVe have twice 
observed the doe called up by this imitation of the voice of the young. 
She is, however, so timid that she makes no effort in defence of her cap- 
tured offspring, and bounds off at the sight of man. 
The common Deer is a gregarious animal, being found on our western 
prairies in immense scattered herds of several hundred. After the 
rutting season the males, as we have before stated, herd together and it is 
only during the season of intercourse that both sexes are found in com 
pany. The does, however, although congregating during a considerable 
portion of the year, are less gregarious than many species of African an- 
telopes, the buffalo, or our domestic sheep; as they are found during the 
summer separated from the rest of the gang or troop, and are only accom- 
panied by their young. 
The Deer is one of the most silent of animals, and scarcely possesses 
any notes of recognition. The fawn has a gentle bleat that might be 
heard by the keen ears of its mother at the distance probably of a hundred 
