Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-01-29
HUES OF THE DEER.
There Are Three Changes In the fear
and They Serve to Protect the
Animals.

Men who go to the woods to Shoot
deer only in the deer season are apt to
think that the animals are always in
the dun coats in which they find them,
but men who live there the year
around know that deer change their
color at least thrice in a year. The
gradations are slight but distinct and
the completed results are widely diff
%ferent, says the New YORK Sun.
just now, in the dead of winter, al
nos all the deer are of an ashen gray
with a tinge of dun. They have the
hghtest hue at present and in this re-
spect they are something like the rab-
bits and weasels which turn white in
winter.
As the first green of spring appears
their coats will begin todeepenan and this
deepening is rapid, almost keeping
pace with the outbudding of the
leaves on the treessand bushes. The
reason for this is not apparent, as
the gray winter coat of the deer would
be less conspicuous in the summer
green than the sharply rufous tint
which they come to assume.
In midsummer the deer is reddish
and, in some individuals, of true red.
This coat lasts until well into fall. be-
ginning to fade in October, and by the
time the men with the small-bore rifles
come it has turned to dun. The
change is later in some individuals,
and thus it happens that even in No
vember an occasional red deer is killed.
There has come to be a belief among
hunters that the bright red deer is
apt to be stronger, fatter and more
valuable than its comrades of So
berer coat, but this is not true. In
deed, the red individual may have
something the matter with it to pre-
vent its changing on schedule time.
The law of nature which gives the
more pronounced colors and marks to
the males of species holds good with
the deer, and the bucks are redder
than the does, and they never get to
be so light of hue ven when there is
two feet of snow on the ground. The
1ed VI Tx dCN1 SIoNS lIIOSt pr OlllllCuL-
ly along the edges of the belly and on
the legs, though sometimes the hair
of the neck is of a bright sorrel.
Possibly in giving the deer ared coat
in summer nature intends merely to
give the eye a handsome contrast with
the dark green of the leaves. and the
the deepening of the color does very
effectively, though it makes the ami
NAL more conspicuous and, there
fore, more easily found by its foes.
The winter coat comes as neal TO as
sanitation with the general tone of
the landscape as anything may come
that has a touch of brown in it. There
is so little of brown that the effect is
almost wholly gray and this takes up
well with the mixture of black and
white caused by the tree trunks and
l~eatiess branches and the snow.
In the fall shooting season, when
the ground is carpeted with dead
leaves and some of the leaves still cling
to the twigs, when the most marked
colors of the woods are the scarlet
of the semi-denuded NAPLES and the
light yellow of the fading tamaracks,
the deer's coat is admirably designed
for its protection. Many a man has
walked within 20 yards of one stand
ing in the dim shaded aisles and never
seen it.
The deer is a big animal to gain adj
vantage from protective coloration,
but it does so, and it's ability to hide,
when it thinks that hiding would be
better than running, is very great.
This concealing instinct is bred in it
and is most marked in the cases of the
fawns.
A fawn three days old, if left for a
little while by its mother, will stand
trembling with every sense on the
alert and if danger appears will squat
on the ground like a quail, lying upon
it's belly with its legs under it and its
nose pressed to earth. 1t will remain
thus in form, though the intruder
pass within a yard of it, and is often
captured because of this fidelity to
the dumb instructions that have been
given to it. Nearly all fawns in cap,
tivity are picked up in this way.