The elegant animals included under the name of Deer, afford the highest
sport to the hunter, the most precious skins, and delicious food.
Considering their size, they are matchless in speed and vigour, and are
as beautiful as they are swift. They are spread all over the globe,
except Australia, and Central and Southern Africa; their place in the
latter continent being supplied by giraffes and antelopes. They leave
the higher mountains to goats, live on moderate elevations, but delight
most in wide, open countries. The fissures, or what are called
lachrymals, exist in most of them; they are clefts below the eyes, which
bear the name of tear-ducts, but their use is not yet understood. They
would not be so much developed as they are in many, unless they bore
strongly upon the animal's economy; but they do not communicate with the
nose, nor are they, in any way, connected with respiration. They are
certainly in relation with glands, because they secrete a greasy fluid,
more abundant at some times than at others, when the edges are much
swollen; and the animals often touch objects with them, stretching them
wide open, doing so, when they are under excitement of any kind.
The muzzles of some deer are nearly flat, and destitute of hair; in
others, they are covered with hair, and the upper lip is prehensile.
Only the male deer have horns, or antlers, as they are called, which
they shed every year; and, up to a certain age, at every renewal, they
increase in size and number of branches. They are placed on a bony pad
upon the forehead, which is covered with skin; and in the second year of
their age, this skin swells; blood rushes towards the pads, their
arteries increase, and rapidly deposit bony matter, the antlers begin to
form, the skin increases with them, and continues to cover them, and the
large arteries which it carries with it make furrows upon the bony
matter, which always remain. So thick and soft is the pile of hair which
protects the skin, that it deserves, and has received, the name of
velvet. When the antlers have attained their yearly size, the arteries
begin to deposit a rough ring of bone round the edges of the pad, which
increases till it stops their passage; so that, deprived of its natural
nourishment, the velvet shrivels up, dries, and peels off; a process
which the deer hastens by rubbing his antlers against trees. The latter
are then hard and serviceable, for had they been used and wounded, when
their covering was so full of blood, the shock would have sent a rush of
it back to the brain, and probably have killed the deer. Before I
understood this arrangement, I have seen these animals with wounded
horns, and have wondered much at the large flow of blood which issued
from them, and others have probably done the same. When the skin is
gone, the antlers remain, as it were mechanically, and as it is one of
the great laws of life to throw off every thing which is no longer a
part of itself, they obey the rule. Absorption takes place beneath the
bony ring, particle after particle disappears, and down go the antlers,
either from their own weight, or some accidental touch; the part where
they stood is quickly covered with skin till spring returns, when a new
growth commences, and a larger pair ensues. The common stag loses his
antlers early in the spring; and they sprout forth again very soon
after.
There is no part of the game laws of various countries more stringent,
than that which relates to the killing of deer, or their management.
Whatever concerned Venerie, as it was called, was a necessary part of a
nobleman's or gentleman's education. The private histories of kings are
very much mixed up with the deer laws, and also some of the public
transactions; for many a fine has been paid, many a worthy person sent
into exile, and many a life lost, in consequence of their infringement;
and the technicalities with which the science and the laws were loaded,
appear in the present times most absurd and tiresome.
Deer are still to be found wild in Scotland, but most rarely in England;
in the north of Europe and America they are common, and those which
frequent cold countries have the antlers much flattened, as if to shovel
away the snow; they will sometimes weigh 60 lbs. These animals are every
where tenacious of life, and will run a long way after being hit in a
mortal part.
Rein-deer, which form the wealth of the Laplanders, serve them for food
and clothing, draw them over pathless fields of snow in safety, and are
the only species really domesticated. They eat a lichen which they find
under the snow, during the winter, and live together in large herds.
They are the least handsome of the whole tribe; are perfectly obedient,
and one man sometimes possesses as many as two thousand. Their joints
crack as they move, and they are extremely fond of salt; even taking it
from the hands of strangers. They usually run at the rate of ten English
miles the hour, but have gone nineteen, and draw a weight of 300 lbs;
but they require good driving, and sometimes dash on, perfectly
regardless of the comfort of those in the sledge. Their smell is very
acute; and by it they are enabled to come up with their party, if they
should have been left behind. They suffer intensely from insects,
especially from a large species (_oestrus tarandi_), which deposits its
eggs in the hole made by its bite. In order to avoid these pests, the
rein-deer are driven during the summer months to the mountains which
overhang the coasts, where their foes are much less numerous. They are
so terrified at their approach, that the sight of one will make them
furious.
Mr. Wentzel says that the Dog-rib Indians go in pairs to kill rein-deer,
the foremost carrying in one hand the horns and part of the skin of a
head of the deer, and in the other, a small bundle of twigs, against
which he, from time to time, rubs the horns, as the deers do. His
companion follows exactly in his footsteps, holding the guns of both in
a horizontal position; so that the muzzle of each projects under the arm
of the first. Both have a fillet of white skin round their foreheads,
and the foremost a strip of the same round each wrist. They gradually
approach the herd, raise their legs very slowly, and put them down again
suddenly, in the manner of deer.
If any of the herd see them, they stop, and the head is made to play its
part by copying their movements. By these means the hunters get into the
very centre of the herd without exciting suspicion; the hindmost man
then pushes forward his comrade's gun, and both fire nearly at the same
instant. The deer scamper off, the hunters trot after them; the poor
animals soon halt to see what alarmed them; their enemies have reloaded
their guns as they proceeded, and give them a second discharge. The
consternation of the deer increases, they run about in the utmost
confusion, and the greater number are frequently thus destroyed.
I have already spoken of dogs which attach themselves to communities,
and now I have a similar instance of a deer to offer, in combination,
however, with a dog, who attached himself to the 42nd Highlanders,
having been presented to that regiment by a friend of one of the
officers. The dog had belonged to a captain in the navy, who dined at
the mess, while the regiment was stationed in Malta, and so attached
himself to that community, that nothing would induce him to leave it; so
his master was forced to leave his favourite Newfoundland behind him;
who, from that moment, would never follow any one who did not wear the
uniform of his friends. The soldiers subscribed, and gave him a collar
with the name of the regiment on it, and called him Peter. A mutual
attachment soon took place between the deer and the dog; and they
regularly appeared on parade together. The latter frequented the
cook-house, where the cook ill-treated him, which was not forgotten, and
one day when the bathing time was come, at which recreation Peter was
the first in and the last out of the water; the cook joined the others
of his corps; and Peter, knowing his power in his own element, pulled
him down, and would have drowned him, had not the soldiers come to his
rescue.
Both dog and deer marched with the band, and remained with it when in
quarters. The latter was very fond of biscuit; but if it had been
breathed upon he would not touch it, and although many ways of cheating
him were tried, he invariably detected the contamination. At one time he
became very irritable; and if a stranger passed between the band and the
main body of the regiment, he attacked him with his antlers. He was
grazing one day when a cat from the neighbourhood bristled up her hair,
and set up her back at him; and the poor deer, seized with a sudden and
unaccountable panic, sprang over a precipice two hundred feet high, and
was killed on the spot. Peter being close by, rushed to the battlements,
and barked and yelled most piteously. His own end was a tragic one; he
snarled at an officer who had often ill-used him, and the unfeeling man
ordered the poor dog to be shot by those who loved him, and lamented him
as long as they lived.
The smallest of the deer species lives in Ceylon; a lovely, delicate
little creature, with lustrous eyes, and of exquisite form. When full
grown it is only ten inches high, fourteen long, and weighs about five
pounds. Its throat, head, and neck, are all white; its body is grey,
striped with black, and spotted at equal distances with yellow. Although
very timid, it is to be tamed; but if angry, it kicks out its little
hind legs, and slender pointed hoofs, with great violence. One which was
domesticated was placed on a dinner-table, where it ran about and
nibbled fruit from the dishes; answered to its name, and returned the
caresses which were bestowed upon it. Its terror of dogs was at first
very great; but at last it allowed a small terrier to come close to it;
and heard the bark of others without being uneasy. A pair were brought
to England, but soon died from inflammation of the lungs; the common and
fatal disease which attacks almost all tropical animals in this climate.