Musk deer

“ It has proved its worst foe. But for the musk this harmless little deer would be comparatively a worthless object of the chase; but as it is, the valuable commodity has created for it a host of enemies, who follow no other occupation but that of hunting it to the death.
The plant-hunters had several times seen musk-deer as they journeyed up the mountain; but as the animal is exceedingly shy, and one of the swiftest of the deer kind, they had not succeeded in getting a shot. They were all the more anxious to procure one, from the very difficulty which they had met with in doing so. ”

“ Musk deer are generally found alone or in pairs, and as they keep a great deal to their particular bit of ground, if one has been seen and not fired at the sportsman may nearly always rely upon finding it again near the same place. When startled this deer gives a low hiss, and as it seldom runs far without stopping to gaze, it generally affords an easy shot. Musk deer are occasionally a nuisance on barasingh ground, and the writer once lost a shot by putting up one of them just as he was getting up to a stag which was calling in the forest. ”

“ The musk-deer is a forest-loving animal, keeping much to one locality. It bounds with amazing agility over the steepest ground, and is wonderfully sure-footed over the most rocky hills. It ruts in winter, produces one or two young, which are driven off in about six weeks' time by the mother to shift for themselves. They begin to produce at an early age—within a year. ”

“ It has been suggested that the defenceless musk deer escapes many of its enemies by the similarity of its secretion to the musky odour of crocodiles. In many animals which live together in herds, such as the antelope and deer, and which have neither bright colours nor far-reaching calls to aid straying members to regain the flock, there are large and active scent glands. ”

“ Pine martens, wild dogs, leopards, eagles, all seem to prey upon the unhappy musk deer, and if it were not that they breed far more rapidly than other deer (according to Hodgson being able to procreate before they are a year old) , they would have no chance of existence at all.
When a musk deer has been killed the pod should be cut off in the presence of the sportsman, and hung up in his tent to dry; if the shikari is allowed to meddle with it, he will probably extract the musk, and fill up the pod with rubbish. ”

“ Musk-deer are hardy, solitary and retiring animals, chiefly nocturnal in habits, and almost always found alone, rarely in pairs and never in herds. They are exceedingly active and surefooted, having perhaps no equal in traversing rocks and precipitous ground ”

“ The wide spread of the horns is not a peculiarity of this species, as it would appear from the nine heads which were exhibited—six from the Upper Yenesei Valley and three from the Altai—that this peculiarity is by no means constant, and that there is nothing but their size to distinguish them from the European race. The Musk-Deer is also very abundant near the upper limit of forest growth, and is snared in quantities by the natives. ”

“ This product is an extremely odorous and unctuous substance, contained in a special organ situated under the belly of the male. The high price which it commands would make the chase of the musk-deer very profitable, were not these animals so rare and so difficult to get at. They lead a solitary life among the scarped rocks and in the thorny bushes bordering on the glaciers. In winter they descend towards more temperate localities. ”

“ White-tail deer are greatly attached to particular localities, and when undisturbed, confine their wanderings within very narrow limits. Even if thoroughly frightened, and driven to a considerable distance, they soon return. If an old white-tail buck is run [Pg 142] with dogs, he may make a long chase, and cover a wide stretch of country, but to-morrow he will probably be found in his old home. In the same way, mule deer, mountain sheep, white goats, and antelope show their attachment for localities, and unless persistently disturbed, wander but little. ”

“ The deer family is rather numerous, and found in many different parts of the world. Reindeers abound in some parts even of Spitzbergen, and with musk oxen can find their food even under the winter snows of the Parry Islands. [Pg 292] The wapiti and heavy large-headed elk or moose, retreat before the advancing civilisation of North America. The Indian mountains and plains have noble races of deer. No species, however, is more celebrated than our red deer. The giraffe is closely allied to the stag family. ”

“ While absent, or vestigial, in most, in a few they are greatly developed, and this, too, in species which possess relatively large horns, as in the Muntjac. It seems difficult to believe that the co-existence of these very different kinds of weapons can be of 67vital importance to their possessors; yet unless this be so, one or other would surely have degenerated. It is significant that in the hornless Musk-deer these teeth attain to a very considerable length, at their maximum as much as three inches. ”

“ They can defend themselves by their powerful horns against the wolves and bears, which, as the Indians say, they not unfrequently kill.
The musk oxen feed on the same substances with the rein-deer, and the prints of the feet of these two animals are so much alike, that it requires the eye of an experienced hunter to distinguish them. The largest killed by us did not exceed in weight three hundred pounds. The flesh has a musky disagreeable flavour, particularly when the animal is lean, which unfortunately for us was the case with all that we now killed. ”

“ The savages say that the white deer are of very great consequence in the estimation of the other deer, and are exceedingly beloved, regarded and honored by the others, but that the reverse is true of the black deer. There are various other large animals in the interior, but they are unknown to the Christians. There are also wolves, dangerous only to small cattle, beavers, otters, weasels, wild cats, foxes, raccoons, minks, hares, musk-rats, about as large as cats, pole-cats and squirrels, some of which can fly. ”

“ A peculiarity exists in the males which renders them easy to be distinguished from other animals of the deer kind. They have a pair of tusks in the upper jaw projecting downwards, each full three inches in length, and about as thick as a goose’s quill. These give to the animal altogether a peculiar appearance. The males only yield the musk, which is found in grains, or little pellets, inside a sac or pod in the skin, situated near the navel ”

“ The musk present in the glands differs in appearance with the season and the age of the animal. Musk deers killed in spring have in their musk bag an unctuous soft mass of a reddish-brown color with the strongest odor; at other seasons the mass is darker in color, almost black, and granular ”

“ The highest type of big-game hunting is the finding of fine animals in their haunts, photographing them movably and unmovably, and then bidding them go in peace. To be really and truly ignorant of such distinguished American citizens as the moose and musk-ox, caribou, sheep, goat, antelope, deer and Alaskan brown bear, is reprehensible, and should be punishable by a fine. ”

“ The white-tailed deer saves its life by skulking low in timber and thick brush. This is why it so successfully resists the extermination that has almost swept the mule deer, antelope, white goat, moose and elk from all the hunting-grounds of the United States. Thanks to its alertness in seeing its enemies first, its skill and quickness in hiding, and its mental keenness in recognizing and using deer sanctuaries, the white- tailed or "Virginia" deer will outlive all the other hoofed animals of North America. ”

“ Five hundred years hence, when the greed and rapacity of "civilized" man has completed the loot and ruin of the continent of North America, the white-tailed deer will be the last species of our big game to be exterminated. Its mental traits, its size, its color and its habits all combine to render it the most persistent of our large animals, and the best fitted to survive. It neither bawls nor bugles to attract its enemies, it can not be called to a sportsman, like the moose, and it sticks to its timber with rare and commendable closeness. ”

“ Excepting the moose, caribou, and wapiti, often wrongly called an elk, found in the western United States and some parts of Canada, the deer of North and South America stand quite [186] apart from those of the Old World, and are placed in a genus of their own. Usually the tail is long, and the brow-antler is always wanting. The most familiar species is the common American deer, of which the Virginia or white-tailed deer is the type. This deer is found in varying forms in both continents, and was regularly hunted by the ancient Mexicans with trained pumas. ”

“ While crossing the marshy bottom through which our road led, a singular hoof-track was observed in the mud. Some were of opinion that it was a track of the great moose-deer, but the hunter-naturalist, better informed, scouted the idea—declaring that moose never ranged, so far to the south. It was no doubt a very large elk that had made the track, and to this conclusion all at length came.
The great moose-deer, however, was an interesting theme, and we rode along conversing upon it.
The moose (Cervus alces) is the largest of the deer kind. The male is ordinarily as large as a mule ”

“ With this purpose, the deer will often make enormous leaps, or run around in a circle so as to confuse and puzzle his pursuers. He will mount a stone wall, and run along it for some distance, well aware that the dog cannot scent him so well on the rock as on the grass. If he can find a pond or stream of water, the deer will plunge in and swim a long distance, so that the dogs may lose his trail.
It is a joyful sound to the poor hunted deer when the dogs send up that sad, dismal howl, which they give utterance to when they have lost all scent of the deer, and despair of finding it. ”

“ They have little of the protective caution so characteristic of the white-tails, and when a shot is fired at a band they often begin a series of extraordinary “buck jumps,” bounding high in the air, facing this way and that, sometimes not taking fight until after several additional shots have been fired. These high, bounding leaps are characteristic of mule deer and are commonly made when the animals are suddenly alarmed and often when they are in full flight through brushy thickets. ”

“ In many places the hills are covered with an almost impenetrable chaparral of scrub oak, buckthorn, greasewood, manzanita, and deer-brush, in which the wary deer have taken refuge. In and through these, guided sometimes by the tracks of the deer, or encouraged by the presence of such tracks even if he cannot follow them, up steep mountains, exposed to the heat of the sun, in dust, over rocks, and without water, toils the hunter, who accounts himself lucky if, by tramping scores of miles through this sort of impediment, he succeeds, after days of toil, in killing his deer. ”

“ Hence, when a grisly does take to game-killing, it is likely to attack bison, moose, and elk; it is rarely able to catch deer, still less sheep or antelope. In fact these smaller game animals often show but little dread of its neighborhood, and, though careful not to let it come too near, go on grazing when a bear is in full sight. Whitetail deer are frequently found at home in the same thicket in which a bear has its den, while they immediately desert the temporary abiding place of a wolf or cougar. ”

“ In these sportive amusements the tame deer gradually draws his prey within musquet shot of the hunter. With a well managed deer, one is able to seize his companion alive; a cord is hung upon the horns of the former, which, in their play, he entangles in the horns of his adversary. From that time the greater the efforts made by the wild deer to escape, the closer the running knot is drawn, and the more strongly the tame deer pulls at the cord, in order to give his master time to come up. It frequently happens however that the wild deer suspects the trick, and escapes the danger by flight. ”

“ What is the secret of the musk-rat's survival while the strong creatures of the chase like buffalo and timber-wolf have been almost exterminated? In the first place, settlers can't farm swamps; so the musk-rat thrives just as well in the swamps of New Jersey to-day as when the first white hunter set foot in America. Then musquash lives as heartily on owls and frogs and snakes as on water mussels and lily-pads. If one sort of food fails, the musk-rat has as omnivorous powers of digestion as the bear and changes his diet. Then he can hide as well in water as on land. ”

“ Deer give beautiful animation to the forests, harmonizing finely in their color and movements with the gray and brown shafts of the trees and the swaying of the branches as they stand in groups at rest, or move gracefully and noiselessly over the mossy ground about the edges of beaver meadows and flowery glades, daintily culling the leaves and tips of the mints and aromatic bushes on which they feed. There are three species, the black-tailed, white-tailed, and mule deer; the last being restricted in its range to the open woods and plains to the eastward of the Cascades. ”

“ Suddenly the hind gives a start—she has come across a footprint; she sniffs at it, quickens her pace, and trots away with her little calf beside her. All at once she gets a puff of the wind and away she goes—bark, bark, bark—but as there are no other deer in sight she can do no harm. Then some more hinds come on, followed by a few small staggies, and the excitement among the guns becomes intense as they know now that the drive has begun. As the first deer get the wind and begin to gallop, a grand Royal appears. ”