The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1905-08-05
A MEETING WITH ACTAEoN.

Readers of this series will doubtless
remember Actaeon, the little white
tailed faWn, which after having brok-
en- its leg, was picked up by a guide in
the Blue Mountain Forest, and turned
over to me to study. They may re-
member, too, that the broken bone knit
perfectly and that the fawn became as
tame as a kitten, remaining close to the
house at all times, and occasionally
even jumping through the windows
when threatened by danger. real or
imagined. At first, the fawn was red
dish in color and beautifully spotted
with white. but as the summer passed,
the spots disappeared, and as the cold
weather approached the reddish coat
was changed for thicker and warmer
grayis1 Brown one. All winter he
stayed with us, coming on the piaZzas
every day to be fed, and sleeping in the
snow, quite at his ease, even when the
thermometer registered twenty-five de-
grees below zero. Often we would look
look out of the window to see him lying
with his head alone sticking out above
1.-THE snow under which the rest of his
body was completely buried. Some
times his face would be sheathed In ice,
and icicles would be hanging from his
chin and his eye-lashes, but he would
go on chewing the cud as calmly as a
COW in a clover field on a summer even
ing. If we tapped on the window, he
would turn his head, stop chewing and
rise to his feet, stretching himself to
take out the kinks. Ten he would give
his body a vigorous shake, sending the
snow flying away in a shower, and
looking brown once more, he would
come to the window and stand on his
hind legs to reach slice of bread held
out to him. Thus he spent the winter
varying the mOnotony of his life by
rOmping with a bear and a tame wolf,
his only playmates.
Early this spring we decided to re-
turn to Actaeon to his native forest and
this was a simple matter, as the fence
which surrounds this great game pre-
serve runs along the end of our gar
den, whence we can enter 1t by gate
So into the forest he went, and with
him gOodly store of bread, potatoes
and other things which a deer will eat,
for the grass had not yet begun to
come up, and he had had little ex-
perience in foraging himself, At first
he would not leave the vicinity of the
gate, and spent most of his time walk
| ing up and down the fence in front of
the house. BY and by, however, he got
over his restlessness, and wandered off
% 1,o
in the course of each day, he was seen
| making his way to the gate to eat the
food which he knew would be waiting
for him.
But in May when everything was
green. and when grass and browse
were to be found on every hand, Ac-
ktaeon scorned bread and potatoes,
and struck deep into the forest. Sell
dom indeed did we get glimpse of
him now, for he seldom returned to
the gate, and we were not often in
that part of the forest in the weeks
! which followed.
Last week, camera in hand, I was
walking softly through the woods,
searching for a doe elk. which [ had
seen half an hour before from a dis
tant hilltop, and which I suspected
had a faWn hidden Whereabouts. Sud-
denly 1 caught a glimpse of red on the
ground under a tree, but as I stopped
to look more carefully. I saw that it
was not an elk fawn, but a handsome
Iyonng buck deer. I dropped to the
ground, behind a messy knoll. and
then, crawling lquiety to the top of it,
l was able to examine him at leisure.
One look was enough to show me that
he was my old friend Actaeon. When
one becomes really very familiar with
an individual animal, it is surprising