Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-10-19
DEER AT SEA.
Triumph of Acclimatization in a South
Pacific Colony.

Pacific Colony.
From Forest and Stream
One of the greatest triumphs of acclima-
tization ever achieved, perhaps, is the es-
tablishment of the red deer in the British
Colonies of the South Pacific 1t is no
slight achievement to carry fallow deer, or
even the little roe deer, over $4,000 miles
of stormy ocean, including a broad tract
where torrid Gains of the equator alter
nate with raging tempests, and ending
with fortnight of cold squalls.
At length, however, shipment of red
deer was successfully carried to Nelson,
seaport at the head of Blind Bay, in
the northern part of the Middle Island of
New Zealand, and as the results of that
operation, in which | had the privilege to
be personally concerned, left absolutely
nothing to be desired, will do my best to
describe it for the information or entertain
ment of readers Of Forest and Stream.
Stalls almost exactly like ordinary horse
| boxes had been fitted up for them on the
main deck of the ship and to these they
were transferred, having been taken down
to the dock in a van and slung on board,
the day before their departure.
Sea-sickness is proyerbially capricious
|
they go on the rolling deep, while others
get their sea legs at once and suffer little
or no inconvenience. This is even more
markedly the case with animals have
seen horses champ their chaff uninter-
ruptedly from leaving the wharf, through
all sorts of weather, while others beside
them were Frustrated with agony and ter
ror. So it was with our deer. The big
stag, sultan of the herd, was a wretchedly
bad sailor. For the first few days, when
we were lacking about the chops of the
channel, or driving through a heavy
sea in the Bay of Biscay, he
used to stand shivering with his
forefeet wide apart, his head hanging
down helplessly, and a mass of spume
driyeling from his mouth and nostrils.
Once or twice he tried to collapse on the
| floor of his box, but we stopped that by
means of broad belly-band of canvas
with a woolly sheepskin lining. 1t
was not until we were off the Western
Islands that he fairly recovered and took
his tucker regularly without any unpleas
ant consequences. His lady loves, on the
contrary, were quite hearty from the start.
When the ship began to roll in the
heavy swell off Deal, they opened their
great pathetic eyes very wide and shifted
inquiringly, as if in feminine curiosity to
know what in thunder was the matter with
the ground. They also had peculiar
! habit of bristling up their hair and wrink
| ling their skin over the neck and shoulders
as a silent protest against such goings on;
+, but they very soon settled down to their
new life, and never missed a meal
from the outset. We had taken an
ample allowance of the best mixed
hay, oats and clover, in neat little trusses,
and enough acorns in barrels to give them
each about half peck day for hundred
days. For variety we gave them ships
biscuit every other day, and on Sunday
they used to be allowed few American
dried apples or a little sugar for treat.
The ship carried large number of en-
igrants, including swarms of children, and
our greatest difficulty was to prevent the
youngsters from killing the poor deer with
kindness, by giving them all sorts of I'M
wholesome things to eat, such as sour pas
try, moldy ralsins, chalky sugar-plums and
other filth. More than once we feared we
should lose one of the binds from this
cause, and .he stag very nearly died off
the Cape of Good Hope of mysterious
illness, which proved to have been caused
by facetious sailor giving him piece
of tobacco, which the unsophisticated
creature masticated and swallowed with
gusto, little suspecting what dire effects
would follow.
As soon as we arrived in port we had
| the deer removed in their boxes, on drag,
to the residence of a gentleman who had
large racing stables, and who took warm
interest in acclimatization, and they were
/ at once placed in loose boxes and supplied
with moderate allowance of green food.
| This was on the outskirts of the lovely
little city of Nelson, where the lower
spurs of range of lofty hills, rising
in the background to snow-capped
mountains, came down to the back
gardens of the houses. A few weeks after
our arrival, when the deer seemed to have
become accustomed to their change of
food and their new surroundings, we chose
nice warm evening-it was in the early
summer-and turned them out of the
stables into the scrub and grass on the hill
side, where there was nothing to prevent
them from wandering away at their pleas
ure.
It was curious and touching, however,
to see how unwilling they were to go.
Like the prisoner of Chillon, they did not
know what to do with their liberty when
they recovered it. The stag, especially,
was 10th to leave us, and we had actually
to drive him into the low scrubs, where he
began browsing, and so, straying on uncon-
sciously was lost to sight in the growing dusk.
The next evening, and for many evenings
afterward, the affectionate creatures came
back, and looked wistfully at US over the
fence, as if begging US to take them back !;
and they did not finally leave the place
and make for the mountains until fierce
kangaroo dog-a cross between a mastiff
and Scottish deerhound-set upon them
and drove them for miles