The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal ObservationsHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Science
The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Animal behavior
It is useless to strike a charging deer on the top of its head, or
on its antlers. Give a sweeping _side_ blow for the
unprotected cheek and jaw, or the tender nose. There is nothing
that a club can do that is so disconcerting as the eye and nose
attack, for a badly injured eye always shuts both eyes,
automatically. Once when alone in the corral of the axis deer
herd, I was treacherously and wantonly attacked by a full-grown
buck. I had violated my own rules about going in armed with a
stick, and it was lucky for me that the axis deer was not as large
as the barasingha or the mule deer. As the buck lowered his head,
threw his long, sharp beams straight forward, and pushed for my
vitals, I seized him by both antlers, to make my defense. At that
he drove forward and nearly upset me. Quickly I let go the right
antler and shifted myself to the animal's left side, where by
means of the left antler I pulled the struggling buck's head
around to my side. Then he began to plunge. Throwing the weight of
my chest upon his shoulders I reached over him and with my free
hand finally grasped his right foreleg below the knee, and pulled
it up clear of the ground. With that I had him.
He tried to struggle free, but I was strong in those days, and
angry besides, and he was helpless. Up beside the deer barn, most
providentially for the finish, I saw a very beautiful barrel
stave. It was the very thing! I worked him over to it, caught it
up, and then still holding him by his left antler I laid that
stave along his side until he was well punished, and glad when
released to rush from that neighborhood.
Female "pet" deer, and female elk, can and do put up dangerous
fights with their front hoofs, standing high up on their hind legs
and striking fast and furiously. A gentleman of my acquaintance
was thus attacked, most unexpectedly, by his pet white-tailed deer
doe. She struck about a dozen times for his breast, and his vest
and coat were slit open in several places. I once saw two cow elk
engage with their front feet in a hot fight, but they did no real
damage.
Of course an angry _bison, buffalo or gaur_ lowers its head
in attacking a man, and seeks to gore and toss him at the same
moment. The American bison will start at a distance of ten or
twenty yards, and with half lowered head jump forward, grunting
"Uh! Uh! Uh!" as he comes. When close up he pauses for a second
and poises his head for the toss. That is the man's one chance. At
that instant he must strike the animal on the side of his head,
and strike hard; and the region of the eye is the spot at which to
aim.
Once we were greatly frightened by the determined charge of a
savage cow bison upon Keeper McEnroe, who was armed with a short-
handled 4-tine pitchfork. As she grunted and came for him we could
not refrain from shouting a terrorized warning, "Look out,
McEnroe! Look out!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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