810 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Pure Albino Deer—A Specimen That Many 
People Have Seen in Forest and Stream’s 
Exhibits at Sportsmen’s Shows. 
a deer to grow his horns and then one month 
more is required for the hardening. The horns 
grow inside a tough skin, which in appearance 
resembles coarse plush of a brown color. When 
in this condition they are said to be “in the 
velvet.” The new growth of horn loosens the old 
horn and in time causes it to drop off. 
The horns are built up by the blood. The veins 
pass through the burr of the antlers and as the 
antlers near their full growth the burr gradually 
tightens on the veins until the flow of blood is 
entirely shut off. Up to this time the velvet is 
very sensitive, even to the slightest touch. 
The animal now begins to realize once more 
his returning strength and he will thresh his 
horns through the brush, in this way tearing off 
the velvet and leaving them bare and keen. 
The shed horns are eaten by wood mice, por¬ 
cupines, squirrels and other gnawing animals; 
and the deer themselves aid in consuming their 
own horns, chewing them and eating them. There 
is doubtless some substance in the horns which 
aids digestion or satisfies a natural craving. 
The abnormal growth of horns is caused by 
the “velvet” being punctured. The bone process 
then grows out of the punctured places, thus 
forming new points. 
There is a dispute as to the location of the 
scent that is given out by the deer. 
It is located in the foot. If the hoof is sepa¬ 
rated, a little pocket is found containing a pasty 
substance, the odor of which resembles that of 
rank cheese. 
This substance works out on the hoof and 
leaves its scent on the ground. If a deer is hard 
pressed by hounds he will take to water and run¬ 
ning in it for some distance the odor will be so 
thoroughly washed out of the hoof that no scent 
will be left on the ground and consequently the 
dogs will be unable to follow. 
DEATH OF DR. D. G. ELLIOTT. 
Daniel Giraud Elliot, zoologist and explorer, 
died on Wednesday, December 22nd, in the 
eighty-first year of his age. He was born in 
New York City, March 7, 1835. Dr. Elliot was 
eminent as an authority on birds and mammals 
and as an explorer in many lands. He was dis¬ 
tinguished the world over, and was often spoken 
of—and fitly so—as the Nestor of American or¬ 
nithologists. 
His travels had covered Europe, Asia, Africa, 
Palestine, Asia Minor, a great part of the United 
States and Alaska, and South America. When 
sixty-one years old he led an expedition into the 
interior of Africa for the purpose of collecting 
zoological material for the Field Museum of Na¬ 
tural History, and two years later, for the same 
purpose, led another in the Olympic Mountains 
of Washington. In 1899 he was with the Harri- 
inan Alaska Expedition. 
Dr. Elliot was a tireless worker, and the au¬ 
thor of a multitude of volumes. Among the 
best known of these were his splendid mono¬ 
graphs in imperial folio, illustrated by hand-col¬ 
ored plates, on various groups of birds and mam¬ 
mals. To sportsmen, the best known of these 
are those on the Grouse, 1865; New and Unfig¬ 
ured Birds of North America, 1869; and the 
Pheasants, 1872. Still more familiar are the 
octavo volumes “Shore Birds of North Amer¬ 
ica,” “Gallinaceous Birds” and “Wild Fowl.” 
Besides his bound volumes, he was the author 
of several hundred papers in scientific publica¬ 
tions. His last great work was “A Review of the 
A Partial Albino Specimen From Maine. 
Primates,” to which he devoted years of re¬ 
search, in the course of which he traveled around 
the world to study the scattered material. 
Dr. Elliot had held many positions of high 
importance. He was Fellow of the Royal So¬ 
ciety of Edinburgh, and member of many learned 
societies. He had been ten times decorated by 
European governments in acknowledgment of his 
labors in natural science. He had been Curator 
of Zoology in the Field Museum of Natural His¬ 
tory, in Chicago, and at the time of his death 
was one of the trustees of the American Mu¬ 
seum of Natural History in New York. He was 
one of the founders of the American Ornithol¬ 
ogists’ Union, was long President of the Nar¬ 
rows Island Club, and a member of the Boone 
and Crockett Club. 
Dr. Elliot was a keep sportsman as well as an 
eminent naturalist. It had long been his prac¬ 
tice each year to visit Currituck County, in North 
Carolina, for the duck shooting. There he spent 
as many hours in the blind as most of the young¬ 
er men, and killed as many ducks. When he was 
stricken with his last illness he had made ar¬ 
rangements to go South on a duck shooting trip. 
In person Mr. Elliot was tall and slim, and 
possessed unusual dignity of manner; yet this 
dignity was so serene and gentle and his nature 
was so kindly and friendly that he was deeply 
loved by all who knew him well. His death re¬ 
moves a well known figure in science and in New 
York City that will be sadly missed. 
THE OWL A FRIEND OF MAN! 
As a matter of fact, our various species of 
medium sized owls are of vast importance to 
agriculturists everywhere throughout the country, 
for they destroy millions of mice, rats, weasels, 
and other mammals, which eat up, in the course 
of a year, thousands of tons of grain and other 
farm produce; and were these animals not kept 
down by such birds as the owls, they would, in 
some parts of the country, eat the farmer and 
agriculturist out of house and home, compelling 
him to seek other employment for a livelihood. 
Indeed, it would be an excellent thing to not 
only encourage such owls as the barn owl for 
example to breed and multiply in the neighbor¬ 
hood of large farms, but also to introduce and 
protect the bird, in such localities as it does not 
normally occur. 
“The Barred Owl,” says Audubon, “is a great 
destroyer of poultry, particularly of chickens 
when half-grown. It also secures mice, young 
hares, rabbits, and many species of small birds, 
but is especially fond of a kind of a frog of a 
brown color, very common in the woods of Lou¬ 
isiana.” So far as this report goes, the sports¬ 
man has nothing in particular to hold the barred 
owl up for, and in these days they probably do 
not kill as many young chickens as they did when 
Audubon lived, and whose observations, by the 
way, were largely confined to Louisiana, where, 
so far as my experience carries me—and I’ve 
kept chickens in Louisiana—there is a flightless, 
featherless, black owl that will get away with 
more chickens in one night than a whole family 
of barred owls will in the course of two or 
three months. 
Taking everything into consideration, then, 
with respect to the habits and food of owls, as 
such matters affect the welfare of man, it is 
perfectly safe to say, in truth, that upon the 
whole these birds are good friends to our race in 
the long run, and fully deserving of our protec¬ 
tion and encouragement. To persistently destroy 
these birds would be a grievous error, as in 
practically all cases where man has upset the 
balance of nature, it has generally reacted, in 
boomrang fashion, by giving him a fearful rap 
for his pains.— Dr. R. W. Shufeldt in Wilson 
Bulletin. 
An Example of Ordinary Albinoism.—Pure 
White Specimens Are Rare. 
