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

In the first place, keep away from all bad deer, especially between October and January first. If you are beset, follow these instructions, as you value your life: If unarmed, seize the deer by the antlers before he touches your vitals, hold on for all you are worth, and shout for help. Keep your feet, just as long as you possibly can. Never mind being threshed about, so long as you keep your feet and keep the tines out of your vitals. Your three hopes are (1) that help will come, (2) or that you can come within reach of a club or some shelter, or (3) that the animal will in some manner decide to desist,--a most forlorn hope. With a good club, or even a stout walking-stick, you have a fighting chance. As the animal lowers his head and comes close up to impale you on his spears of bone, hit him a smashing blow across the side of his head, or his nose. In a desperate situation, aim at the eye, and lay on the blows. If your life is in danger from a buck elk or a large deer, do not hesitate about putting out an eye for him. What are a thousand deer eyes compared with a twelve inch horn thrust through your stomach? My standing instructions to our keepers of dangerous animals are: "Save your own life, at all hazards. Don't let a dangerous animal kill you. Kill any animal rather than let it kill you!"