“I heard my neighbour breakin’ his way through the thicket, and strange I tell ye all, but true it is, I couldn’t believe I war goin’ to get clar even then until I seed Casey standin’ in front o’ me.
“Well, of coorse, I was now set free again, but couldn’t put a foot to the ground. Casey carried me home to the shanty, whar I lay for well nigh six weeks, afore I could go about, and damn the thing! I han’t got over it yet.”
So ended Redwood’s story.
Chapter Twenty Three.
The American Deer.
During our next day’s journey we fell in with and killed a couple of deer—a young buck and doe. They were the first of these animals we had yet seen, and that was considered strange, as we had passed through a deer country. They were of the species common to all parts of the United States’ territory—the “red” or “fallow” deer (Cervus Virginianus). It may be here remarked that the common deer of the United States, sometimes called “red deer,” is the fallow deer of English parks, that the “elk” of America is the red deer of Europe, and the “elk” of Europe is the “moose” of America. Many mistakes are made in relation to this family of animals on account of these misapplied names.
In North America there are six well-defined species of deer—the moose (Cervus alces); the elk (Cervus Canadensis); the caribou (tarandus); the black-tail or “mule” deer (macrotis); the long-tail (leucurus); and the Virginian, or fallow deer (Virginianus). The deer of Louisiana (Cervus nemoralis) is supposed by some to be a different species from any of the above; so also is the “mazama” of Mexico (Cervus Mexicanus). It is more probable that these two kinds are only varieties of the Genus Virginianus—the difference in colour, and other respects, resulting from a difference in food, climate, and such like causes.
It is probable, too, that a small species of deer exists in the Russian possessions west of the Rocky Mountains, quite distinct from any of the six mentioned above; but so little is yet known of the natural history of these wild territories, that this can only be taken as conjecture. It may be remarked, also that of the caribou (Cervus tarandus) there are two marked varieties, that may almost be regarded in the light of species. One, the larger, is known as the “woodland caribou,” because it inhabits the more southern and wooded districts of the Hudson’s Bay territory; the other, the “barren ground caribou,” is the “reindeer” of the Arctic voyagers.