DEER HUNTING. 
239 
DEER HUNTING. 
HE Common Deer of North America, 
Cervus Virginianus , differs entirely from 
all the European or Indian varieties of 
this order. It is smaller in size than the 
Red Deer—Hart and Hind—of the Bri¬ 
tish Isles and the European Continent, 
and is far inferior to it in stateliness of 
character, in bearing, and in the size and 
extent of its antlers, which, moreover, are 
very distinct in form from those of the stag. This distinction con¬ 
sists in the fact that, while the main stem of the horn in the Red 
Deer invariably leans backward from the brow, with all the 
branches or tines pointing forward and downward, to the number 
of ten or twelve, in the American Deer it points forward and 
downward, with the branches arising from it backward and 
upward. 
From the Fallow Deer of Europe, which I believe to have 
been originally introduced from the East, it differs in being 
much larger, and having branched, as distinguished from pal- 
mated horns. 
Its flesh is much nearer akin, as indeed is its general appear¬ 
ance, to that of the Red than the Fallow Deer, being very rarely 
fat, and much drier, and less delicate, than that of the buck or 
doe. It is so very much larger than the Roebuck, and differs 
from it so greatly in all respects, that it is needless to enter mi¬ 
nutely into the difference. 
