A little brother to the bear, and other animal studies

by William J. Long

A stamp of his foot and a low snort stopped the play instantly, and the big buck moved out on the shore in full view. He looked out over the lake, where he had so often seen the canoes of men moving; his nose tried the wind up shore; eyes and ears searched below, where I was lying; then he scanned the lake again keenly. Perhaps he had seen my canoe upturned among the water-grasses far away; more probably it was the unknown sense or feel of an enemy, which they who hunt with or without a gun find so often among the larger wild animals, that made him restless and suspicious. While he watched and searched the lake and the shores not a deer stirred from his tracks. Some command was in the air which I myself seemed to feel in my hiding. Suddenly the big buck turned and glided away into the woods, and every deer on the shore followed instantly without question or hesitation. Even the little fawns, never so heedless as to miss a signal, felt something in the buck's attitude deeper than their play, something perhaps in the air that was not noticed before, and trotted after their mothers, fading away at last like shadows into the darkening woods.

On another lake, years before, when hunting in the same way without a gun, I saw another curious bit of deer wisdom. It must be remembered that deer are born apparently without any fear of man. The fawns when found very young in the woods are generally full of playfulness and curiosity; and a fawn that has lost its mother will turn to a man quicker than to any other animal. When deer see you for the first time, no matter how old or young they are, they approach cautiously, if you do not terrify them by sudden motions, and in twenty pretty ways try to find out what you are. Like most wild animals that have a keen sense of smell, and especially like the bear and caribou, they trust only their noses at first. When they scent man for the first time they generally run away, not because they know what it means but for precisely the opposite reason, namely, because there is in the air a strong scent that they do not know, and that they have not been taught by their mothers how to meet. When in doubt run away—that is the rule of nose which seems to be impressed by their mothers upon all timid wild things, though they act in almost the opposite way when sight or hearing is in question.

All this is well known to hunters; but now comes the curious exception. After I had been watching the deer for some weeks at one of their playgrounds, a guide came into camp with his wife and little child. They were on their way in to their own camp for the hunting season. To please the little one, who was fond of all animals, I took her with me to show her the deer playing. As they were running about on the shore I sent her out of our hiding, in a sudden spirit of curiosity, to see what the deer and fawns would do. True to her instructions, the little one walked out very slowly into the midst of them. They started at first; two of the old deer circled down instantly to wind her; but even after getting her scent, the suspicious man-scent that most of them had been taught to fear, they approached fearlessly, their ears set forward, and their expressive tails down without any of the nervous wiggling that is so manifest whenever their owners catch the first suspicious smell in the air. The child, meanwhile, sat on the shore, watching the pretty creatures with wide-eyed curiosity, but obeying my first whispered instructions like a little hero and keeping still as a hunted rabbit. Two little spotted fawns were already circling about her playfully, but the third went straight up to her, stretching his nose and ears forward to show his friendliness, and then drawing back to stamp his little fore foot prettily to make the silent child move or speak, and perhaps also to show her in deer fashion that, though friendly, he was not at all afraid.

There was one buck in the group, a three-year-old with promising antlers. At first he was the only deer that showed any fear of the little visitor; and his fear seemed to me to be largely a matter of suspicion, or of irritation that anything should take away the herd's attention from himself. The fall wildness was coming upon him, and he showed it by restless fidgeting, by frequent proddings of the does with his antlers, and by driving them about roughly and unreasonably. Now he approached the child with a shake of his antlers, not to threaten her, it seemed to me, but rather to show the other deer that he was still master, the Great Mogul who must be consulted upon all occasions. For the first time the little girl started nervously at threatening motion, I called softly to her to keep still and not be afraid, at the same time rising up quietly from my hiding-place. Instantly the little comedy changed as the deer whirled in my direction. They had seen men before and knew what it meant. The white flags flew up over the startled backs, and the air fairly bristled with whistling h-e-e-e-yeu, he-u's as deer and fawns rose over the nearest windfalls like a flock of frightened partridges and plunged away into the shelter of the friendly woods.

There are those who claim that the life of an animal is a mere matter of blind instinct and habit. Here on the shore before my eyes was a scene that requires a somewhat different explanation.

Though deer are the most numerous and the most interesting animals to be hunted without a gun, they are by no means the only game to fill the hunter's heart full and make him glad that his game bag is empty. Moose are to be found on the same waters, and in the summer season, if approached very slowly and quietly, especially in a canoe, they show little fear of man. Last summer, as I stole down the thoroughfare into Matagammon, a cow moose and her calf loomed up before me in the narrow stream. I watched her awhile silently, noting her curious way of feeding,—now pulling up a bite of lush water-grass, now stretching her neck and her great muffle to sweep off a mouthful of water-maple leaves, first one then the other, like a boy with two apples; while the calf nosed along the shore and paid no attention to the canoe, which he saw perfectly but which his mother did not see. After watching them a few minutes I edged across to the opposite bank and drifted down to see if it were possible to pass without disturbing them. The calf was busy with something on the bank, the mother deep in the water-grass as I drifted by, sitting low in the canoe. She saw me when abreast of her, and after watching me a moment in astonishment turned again to her feeding. Then I turned the canoe slowly and lay to leeward of them, within ten yards, watching every significant motion. The calf was nearer to me now, and the mother by a silent command brought him back and put him on the side away from me; but the little fellow's curiosity was aroused by the prohibition, and he kept peeking under his mother's belly, or twisting his head around over her hocks, to see who I was and what I was doing. But there was no fear manifest, and I backed away slowly at last and left them feeding just where I had found them.

In curious contrast was the next meeting. It was on the little beaver stream below Hay Lake, a spot as wild as any dream of Doré, and a famous feeding-ground for moose and deer. I was fishing for trout when a mother moose came up-stream among the bilberry and alder bushes. I had stopped casting and sat low in my canoe, and she did not see me until abreast of me, within twenty feet. Then she swung her huge head carelessly in my direction, and went on as if I were of no more account than one of the beaver houses on the shore. Ten steps behind her came a calf. The leaves had scarcely closed on her flanks when he put his head out of the bushes and came plump upon me. With a squeal and a jump like a startled deer he plunged away through the bushes, and I heard the mother swing round in a crashing circle to find him and to know what had frightened him. Ten minutes later, as I sat very still in the same spot, a huge head was thrust out of the bushes where the calf had disappeared. Below it, pressing close against his mother's side, was the head of the little one, looking out again at the thing that had frightened him. He had brought her back to see, and was now plainly asking What is it, mother? what is it? though there was never a sound uttered. And there they stayed for a full minute, while none of us moved a muscle, before they drew back silently and disappeared, leaving only a double line of waving, quivering bush tops, like the trail of a huge snake, to tell me where they had gone. On the same stream I got the famous bull of the expedition. I was paddling along silently when I turned a bend, and a huge dark bulk loomed suddenly out of the water dead ahead of the canoe. In front of the dark bulk two great antlers, the biggest I ever saw in Maine, reached up and out. The rest of his head was under water groping for lily roots, and my first exultant thought was that one might drive the canoe between the tips of those great antlers without touching them, so big and wide were they. Instead I sent the canoe swiftly forward till his head began to come up, when I crouched low and watched him, so near that every changing expression of his huge face and keen little eyes was seen perfectly without my glasses. He saw me instantly and dropped the root he had pulled up, and his lower jaw remained hanging in his intense wonder. Not so much who I was, but how on earth I got there so silently seemed to be the cause of his wonder. He took a slow step or two in my direction, his ears setforward stiffly and his eyes shining as he watched me keenly for the slightest motion. Then he waded out leisurely, climbed the bank, which was here steep, and disappeared in the woods. As he vanished I followed him, close behind, and watched his way of carrying his huge antlers and lifting his legs with a high step, like a Shanghai rooster, over the windfalls. Of all the moose that I have ever followed, this was the only one whose head seemed too heavy for comfort. He carried it low, and nursed his wide antlers tenderly among the tree trunks and alder stems. They were still in the velvet, and no doubt the rude scraping of the rough branches made him wince unless he went softly. At last, finding that I was close at his heels, he turned for another look at me; but I slipped behind a friendly tree until I heard him move on, when I followed him again. Some suspicion of the thing that was on his trail, or it may be some faint eddy of air with the danger smell in it, reached him then; he laid his great antlers back on his shoulders, moose fashion, and lunged away at a terrific pace through the woods. I could fancy his teeth gritting and his eyes at squint as some snapping branch whacked his sensitive antlers and made him grunt with the pain of it. But the fear behind was all-compelling, and in a moment I had lost him in the shadow and silence of the big woods.