A DEER STORY | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 50.

A DEER STORY.

BRUTE instinct has formed the theme of many an article, and wonderful instances have been given of the exercise of almost human judgment by animals, but the following which came under our own observation, lays just a shade over anything we ever read: Last Sunday C. Sweeters and the writer were driving up the water cañon, and as we turned a bend we saw a doe and a young fawn drinking from the stone ditch. At our approach the animals were startled, and in attempting to turn and run the fawn lost its balance and fell into the ditch. As many of our readers know, the water runs very swiftly and in great volume up there, and of course the fawn was carried down the stream. The mother deer seemed to lose all fear of us, and ran along the edge of the ditch trying to reach her offspring with her head.

Suddenly she ran ahead of the floating fawn for some little distance. She plunged into the ditch with her head down stream and her hindquarters toward the fawn, and braced her forefeet firmly in the crevices of the rocks to resist the rush of water. In a second the fawn was washed up on its mother's back and it instinctively clasped her neck with its forelegs. The doe then sprang from the ditch with the fawn on her back. She lay down and the baby deer rolled to the ground in an utterly exhausted condition. Mr. Sweeters and I were now not more than thirty feet from the actors in this animal tragedy, but the mother, seemingly unconscious of our presence, licked and fondled her offspring for a few minutes until it rose to its feet, and the doe and fawn trotted off up the mountainside.

If there is anybody that doesn’t believe Mr. Sweeters when he tells this story, let him come to us and we will vouch for it.—Banning Herald.

“And this is the creature,” says Our Dumb Animals, “that some folks shoot for fun.”