Now the Adirondack buck is far from being the gentle, interesting creature that the sympathetic public has in mind. There is a buck in the State Deer Park that tried to kill its keeper, a man who had cared for it, petted it, and fed it since it was a fawn. The treacherous beast charged on the keeper, threw him down, and spiked him three times, driving one of his horns six inches into the man's body. The unfortunate keeper who was laid up in bed for months from his wounds, would have been gored to death had not a neighbor who was passing by heard his cries for help and, picking up a club, drove the buck off. Three does where lost in this herd, dying from the maltreatment of bucks. A few seasons ago in a private deer-park at Saranac Lake, owned by Mr. Nathan Straus, of New York, a buck pushed a doe over and disembowelled the defenseless animal with his horns. Similar instances of bucks killing does are reported from other localities. While expressions of sympathy for the fate of the tearful-eyed doe may be proper, any humane sentiment regarding a buck is entirely misconceived. He is a vicious, treacherous brute that may be shot without compunction whenever the law permits.

In collecting the statistics submitted herewith, the various correspondents, representing every minor locality in the Adirondacks, were requested to report also on the number of deer found dead in their respective districts during the previous winter. The large number thus reported, none of which had been killed or wounded, is a matter requiring serious consideration. Mr. Wellington Kenwill, an intelligent and reliable guide who keeps a hunter's hotel at the Indian Clearing on the headwaters of the South Branch of Moose River, reports ninety-three dead deer* found in that particular locality. It is within a few years only that these stories of dead deer have been heard. During the last two years an increased number have been reported, and now information from the south part of St. Lawrence county indicates that a large number died in that section during the winter of 1894-95. Various reasons and theories have been advanced in explanation of this serious mortality among our largest and best game.

There seems to be a general belief among the guides and hunters that the animals die of starvation; that, owing to the severe prolonged winter, the animals were unable to find a proper supply of food, or were powerless to travel through the deep snow in search of browse; that in the vicinity where these carcasses were found all the foliage of the evergreens and buds of the hardwoods within reach had been entirely devoured; and that the deer, under the protection of the Game Law, had increased so rapidly within a few years that there was no longer a sufficient supply of food for them all during the winter season. In opposition to this explanation it is argued by others that

* See Mr. Kenwill's statement, page 229.

the Adirondack winter is no longer or more severe, and the snow no deeper, than in Maine, Michigan, and Canada where no dead deer are found at this season; that the winters in the Adirondacks are no worse than years ago when the deer wintered without any noticeable loss of this character; and that at the same time and under the same climatic conditions not one dead dear was observed in Essex county and other large areas of Adirondack territory. Deer have been closely observed in the vicinity of lumber camps, feeding on fallen tree tops, which were thin, weak, and sickly in appearance, evidently suffering from some distemper; and it was noticed that these animals died afterward although an abundance of hay and other food was purposely placed within their reach.

It has also been suggested that this great mortality among the deer in winter may be due to an epidemic, some kind of contagious distemper or epizootic. The deer are a species of ruminants so closely allied to certain of our domestic animals that there is nothing improbable in the idea that they may be affected with some cattle disease similar to that which often kills our cows and sheep. In reply it has been urged that the deer die only in winter, whereas, if they perished from some form of cattle disease the epidemic would manifest itself at other seasons as well as in winter; at least, its appearance would not be confined exclusively to that one season.

Another theory, suggested probably by the restricted territory within which the deaths occurred, is that the deer have found there some noxious, deleterious weed, or vegetable growth of a poisonous nature which they eat and which enfeebles them so that they die from its effects. The local character of the epidemic is advanced as warranting this idea. The indications of poison were so strong that it was broadly hinted in those localities that some guides, enraged at their exclusion from certain large preserves, had sought revenge by making salt-licks on which Paris green had been sprinkled. There is no ground for the latter assumption, and it is an unwarranted imputation on the good reputation of the guides. If the death of these deer was caused by poison, it resulted from natural causes.

Still another theory has been advanced by intelligent, observant residents in the forest-old experienced hunters who assert that the deer which are found dead are animals that were hounded too hard; that these deer became overheated in some long race with the hounds, and then plunged into the cold waters of the lake to escape the dogs; and that they thereby contracted lung disease or some other serious ailment. that either enfeebled them so that they were unable to withstand the winter, or else induced some form of acute disease that was the direct cause. of their death. But this plausible and reasonable explanation is weakened by the fact that hounding is followed everywhere in the Adirondacks, except in St. Lawrence county, while the mortality is confined to a comparatively small territory.