Unfortunately the wild birds and beasts near our home have learned that man is unnatural, a creature to be feared, and their curiosity has given [[206]]place to another motive. The young still display their natural bent freely; but the old have heard too many of our guns, have been too often disturbed by our meddlesome dogs or worthless cats, have suffered too much at the hands of outrageous egg-collectors or skin-collectors to be any longer drawn to us when we go afield. As you go farther away from civilization it becomes easier to play on the animals’ native curiosity; in the far North or the remote jungle, or wherever man is happily unknown, they still come fearlessly to investigate you, or to stand quiet, like the ptarmigan, watching with innocent eyes as you pass them by. In the intermediate regions, which are harried by sportsmen for a brief period in the autumn and then left to a long solitude, the animals are wild or tame according to season; and it has seemed to me, not always but on occasions, that in some subtle way they distinguish between man and man, taking alarm at the first sniff of a hunter, but stopping to show their interest in a harmless woods-rover.
This last is a mere theory, to be sure, and to some it may appear a fanciful one; but it rests, be assured, upon repeated experience. Thus, I came once at evening to a camp of hunters who were in a sorry plight. They were in a good deer country, and had counted largely on venison to supply [[207]]their table; but for more than a week they had tasted no meat, and they were very hungry. The deer were wild as hawks, they assured me. They had hunted every day; but because of the game’s wildness and the dry weather, which made the leaves rustle loudly underfoot, it had proved impossible to approach near enough for a shot—all of which made me think that, if you want to see game, you should leave your gun at home. I had met about a dozen deer that day; most of them were within easy range, and a few of them stood with questioning eyes while a man might have made ready his camera and taken a picture of them.
The very next morning, and within a mile of the hunters’ camp, I witnessed a familiar but fascinating display of deer nature. At sunrise I approached a bog, bordering a stream where a few good trout might be found, and on the edge of the opening stood a doe and her well-grown fawn, not twenty yards away. The fawn, a little buck with the nubs of his first antlers showing, threw up his head as I appeared, and in the same instant I dropped to the ground behind a mossy log. No whistle or sound of alarm followed the action; so I scraped a mat of moss from the log, put it on for a bonnet, and cautiously raised my head.
The old doe was still feeding; the buck stood [[208]]like a living statue, his whole attention fastened on the spot where I had disappeared. He had seen something, he knew not what, and was waiting for it to show itself again. When my bonnet appeared his eyes seemed to enlarge and flash as he caught the motion. Without changing his footing, for his surprise seemed to have rooted him in the ground, he began to sway his body to left or right, stretching his head high or dropping it low, taking a dozen graceful attitudes in order to view the queer bit of moss from different angles. Then he slowly raised a fore foot, put it down very gently, raised it again, stamped it down hard. Getting no response to his challenge, he sidled over to his mother, still keeping his eyes fastened on the log. At his touch or call she lifted her head, pointing her nose straight at me, as if he had somehow told her where to give heed.
It was a wonderful sight, the multicolored bog spread like a rug at the feet of the glorious October woods, and standing on the crimson fringe of it these two beautiful creatures, demanding with flashing eyes who the intruder might be. For a full minute, while I held motionless, the doe kept her eyes steadily on the log; then, “Nothing there, little buck; don’t worry,” she said in her own silent way, and went to feeding once more.
“But there is something; I saw it,” insisted the [[209]]little buck, nudging his mother by swinging his head against her side. That was the first and only time, in that quick swing, when he took his eyes from what attracted them. The doe looked a second time, saw nothing uncommon, and had turned to feed along the edge of the opening when the little buck recalled her in some way. “Can’t you see it, that white thing like a face under the moss?” he was saying. “There! it moved again!”
The mother, whose back was turned to me, twisted her head around as if to humor him, and to interest her I swayed the moss bonnet to and fro like a pendulum. At that she whirled, surprise written large on her, and I dropped my head, leaving her staring. When I looked again both deer were coming nearer, the mother ahead, the fawn holding back as if to say, “Careful now! It’s big, and it’s hiding just behind that log.” So they drew on warily, stopping to stamp a fore foot, and every time they challenged I gave the bonnet an answering wag. When they were so near that I knew they must soon distinguish my eyes from the moss, I sank out of sight. I was listening for their alarm-call or for the thud of their flying feet when a gray muzzle slid over the log, and I laid my hand fair on the mother’s cheek before she bounded away.
Now there was nothing strange or new in all [[210]]that; on the contrary, it was very much like what I had observed in other inquisitive deer. The only surprising part of the comedy was that the doe, though she had felt the touch of my hand and no doubt smelled the man behind it, stopped short after a few jumps and turned to stare at the log again. That she was still curious, still unsatisfied, was plain enough; what puzzles me to know is, whether she would have acted in the same way if one of the hungry hunters had been waiting in my shoes for the chance or moment to kill her.
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