I was hunting with a group near a large game reserve and we were unable to locate any deer on the first afternoon of hunting. The consensus of opinion was that the deer were on the reserve so I covered a large part of this reserve the next morning. I found very few signs of deer. That afternoon I found a large concentration of deer bedded in a large area of cutover land that had grown up to an almost impenetrable jungle of small spruce and fir. This tract was not over two miles from the reserve, but most of the deer preferred it as a sanctuary. They preferred natural cover to legal protection. Instinct or reasoning?



Many cases of deer entering farm yards and even buildings, while trying to escape from dogs, seems to indicate that they know man will protect them in an emergency, but in reality the deer will face almost any danger to avoid dogs, and when they turn to man for protection, it is as a last resort in their panic.

I was going to work in my woodlot and as I approached the place I met a deer with a dog about a hundred feet behind it. The deer was near the point of exhaustion, and when it saw me it tried to jump over a brush pile, landed in the middle of it and had to scramble over the rest of it on its knees. I shot the dog and as soon as the deer realized that it was no longer being chased, it stopped trying to escape and stood there resting, not over fifty yards from me. That deer stayed there all morning with me cutting wood in plain sight of it. Did that deer use reasoning power or was it so exhausted that it was indifferent to its fate?

An incident that happened on a tennis court is convincing evidence that deer have very little reasoning power. There were no eyewitnesses to this incident, but the tracks told the story. The court was enclosed on three sides and about half of the fourth by a high fence. Deer entered this enclosure, tempted by the chemicals used to keep the grass from growing. Instead of leaving by the open entrance, they tried to leave by one of the fenced sides. They leaped repeatedly at the fence, being thrown back and to the ground, until they finally broke through. This is similar to the tests that men use in studying animal intelligence. In this case it seems to place the deer in a poor position when it comes to reasoning power.

Thousands of deer hunters head for the woods every hunting season with the avowed intention of bagging a deer. Most of these hunters are indifferent as to how this is accomplished, but the true sportsman likes to know that the kill is the result of his own efforts and that it is not merely the result of an accidental encounter. The highest goal which he can aim for is the unaided stalking and killing of a deer, preferably one that is resting in a bed of its own choosing.

In cases of some sorts, the deer has all of the advantages. It is in a position where it can watch all approaches, it is seldom asleep, usually on the alert, and it nearly always has several escape routes which it may use in case of danger.

It is seldom possible for the hunter to locate these deer from a distance, so it is nearly always necessary for him to stalk an area where a deer might be located, with no sure knowledge that there will be a deer at the end of the stalk. This can be very discouraging to the hunter who has no idea of the probable resting places of deer, and even if he knows of these places, he may have to stalk several of them before he finds one which is occupied.