The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

Even when a deer species has a fairly good record for common sense, an individual may "go crazy" the instant a slightly new situation arises. We have seen barasingha deer penned up between shock-absorbing bales of hay seriously try to jump straight up through a roof skylight nine feet from the floor. We have seen park-bred axis deer break their own necks against wire fences, with 100 per cent of stupidity. CHARACTERS OF DEER SPECIES The white-tailed deer is sanguine, but in the fall the bucks are very aggressive and dangerous, and to be carefully avoided. The mule deer is sanguine, reasonable and not particularly dangerous. The elk is steady of nerve, and sanguine in temperament, but in the rutting season the herd-masters are dangerous. The fallow deer species has been toned down by a hundred generations of park life, and it is very quiet, save when it is to be captured and crated. The axis deer is nervous, flighty, and difficult to handle. The barasingha deer is hysterical and unaccountable. The Indian and Malay sambar deer are lymphatic, confident, tractable and easily handled. Never keep a deer as a "pet" any longer than is necessary to place it in a good home. All "pet deer" are dangerous, and should be confined all the time. Never go into the range or corral of a deer herd unless accompanied by the deer-keeper; and in the rutting season do not go in at all. The only thoroughly safe deer is a dead one; for even does can do mischief. A SAMPLE OF NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT. As an example of temperament in small carnivores, we will cite the coati mundi of South America. It is one of the most nervous and restless animals we know. An individual of sanguine temperament rarely is seen. Out of about forty specimens with which we have been well acquainted, I do not recall one that was as quiet and phlegmatic as the raccoon, the nearest relative of Nasua. With a disposition so restless and enterprising, and with such vigor of body and mind, I count it strange that the genus Nasua has not spread all over our south-eastern states, where it is surely fitted to exist in a state of nature even more successfully than the raccoon or opossum.