Among the hoofed and horned animals of North America the white- tailed deer is the shrewdest in the recognition of its enemies, the wisest in the choice of cover, and in measures for self- preservation. It seems at first glance that the buck is more keen- witted than the doe; but this is a debatable question. Throughout the year the buck thinks only of himself. During fully one-half the year the doe is burdened by the cares of motherhood, and the paramount duty of saving her fawns from their numerous enemies. This, I am quite sure, is the handicap which makes it so much easier to kill a doe in the autumn hunting season than to bag a fully antlered and sophisticated buck who has only himself to consider. The white-tailed deer saves its life by skulking low in timber and thick brush. This is why it so successfully resists the extermination that has almost swept the mule deer, antelope, white goat, moose and elk from all the hunting-grounds of the United States. Thanks to its alertness in seeing its enemies first, its skill and quickness in hiding, _and its mental keenness in recognizing and using deer sanctuaries,_ the white- tailed or "Virginia" deer will outlive all the other hoofed animals of North America. In Pennsylvania they know enough to rush for the wire-bounded protected area whenever the hunters appear. That state has twenty-six such deer sanctuaries,--well filled with deer. The moose and caribou dwell upon open or half-open ground, and are at the mercy of the merciless long-range rifles. Their keenness does not count much against rifles that can shoot and kill at a quarter of a mile. In the rutting season the bull moose of Maine or New Brunswick is easily deceived by the "call" of a birch-bark megaphone in the hands of a moose hunter who imitates the love call of the cow moose so skilfully that neither moose nor man can detect the falsity of the lure. The mountain sheep is wide-eyed, alert and ready to run, but he dwells in exposed places from the high foothills up to the mountain summits, and now even the most bungling hunter can find him and kill him at long range. In the days of black powder and short ranges the sheep had a chance to escape; but now he has none whatever. He has keener vision and more alertness than the goat, but as a real life-saving factor that amounts to nothing! Wild sheep are easily and quickly exterminated. The mountain goat has no protection except elevation and precipitous rocks, and to the hunter who has the energy to climb up to him he, too, is easy prey. Usually his biped enemy finds him and attacks him in precipitous mountains, where running and hiding are utterly impossible. When discovered on a ledge two feet wide leading across the face of a precipice, poor Billy has nothing to do but to take the bullets as they come until he reels and falls far down to the cruel slide-rock. He has a wonderful mind, but its qualities and its usefulness belong in Chapter XIII.