By the prongs we are able to tell the number of years old they are.
In the fall of the year when an old buck has his horns fully grown to see
him running in his native forest is a beautiful sight. At that season his
color has changed to a bluish grey. When the weather gets cold and it
freezes hard his horns drop off, and he has to go bareheaded until
spring. Then his hair is very long and grey. Deer are commonly poor in
the spring, and at this season their hide is very thin and not worth
much. So we see the deer is a very singular animal. As I have been going
through the woods I have often picked up their horns and carried them
home for curiosities. They were valuable for knife-handles.
When the old buck is started from his bed and is frightened how he
clears the ground. You can mark him from twenty to thirty feet at every
jump. (I have measured some of his jumps, by pacing, and found them to
be very long, sometimes two rods.) How plump he is, how symmetrically
his body is formed, and how beautiful the appearance of his towering,
branching antlers! As he carries them on his lofty head they appear like
a rocking chair.
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