reddish in summer and greyish in winter, with a long tail, which is coloured like the back above but white below, and is carried elevated when the animal is running, so as to form with the white of the inner sides of the buttocks a conspicuous “blaze.” A white fetlock-gland with a black centre is also distinctive of this species. The antlers are large and curve forwards, giving off an upright snag near the base, and several vertical tines from the upper surface of the horizontal portion. As we proceed southwards from the northern United States, deer of the white-tailed type decrease steadily in size, till in Central America, Peru and Guiana they are represented by animals not larger that a roe-buck. The most convenient plan appears to be to regard all these degenerate forms as local races of the white-tail, although here again there is room for difference of opinion, and many naturalists prefer to call them species. The large ears, brown-and-white face, short, black-tipped tail, and antlers without large basal snag serve to distinguish the mule-deer M. (D.) hemionus, of western North America; while the black tail, M. (D.) columbiana, ranging from British Columbia to California, is a smaller animal, recognizable by the larger and longer tail, which is black above and white below.
South America is the home of the marsh-deer or guazu, M. (Blastoceros) dichotoma, representing a subgenus in which the complex antlers lack a basal snag, while the hair of the back is reversed. This species is about the size of a red-deer, with a foxy red coat with black legs. The pampas-deer, M. (B.) bezoartica, of the Argentine pampas is a much smaller animal, of paler colour, with three-tined antlers. The Chilean and Peruvian Andes and Patagonia are the homes of two peculiar deer locally known as guemals (huemals), and constituting the subgenus Xenelaphus, or Hippocamelus. They are about the size of fallow-deer, and have simply forked antlers. The Chilian species is M. (B.) bisulca and the Peruvian M. (B.) antisiensis. Brockets, of which there are numerous species, such as M. rufa and M. nemorivaga, are Central and South American deer of the size of roe-bucks or smaller, with simple spike-like antlers, tufted heads and the hair of the face radiating from two whorls on the forehead so that on the nose the direction is downwards. The smallest of all deer is the Chilian pudu (Pudua pudu), a creature not much larger than a hare, with almost rudimentary antlers.
The musk-deer forms the subject of a separate article.
For deer in general, see R. Lydekker, The Deer of all Lands (London, 1898, 1908). (R. L.*)
DEERFIELD, a township of Franklin county, Massachusetts,
U.S.A., on the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers, about 33 m. N.
of Springfield. Pop. (1900) 1969; (1910 U.S. census) 2209.
Deerfield is served by the Boston & Maine and the New York,
New Haven & Hartford railways. The natural beauty and the
historic interest of Deerfield attract many visitors. There are
several villages and hamlets in the township, the oldest and
most interesting of which is that known as “The Street” or
“Old Street.” This extends along one wide thoroughfare over a
hill and across a plateau or valley that is hemmed in on the E. by
a range of highlands known as East Mountain and on the W. by
the foothills of Hoosac Mountain. Many of the houses in this
village are very old. In Memorial Hall, a building erected in 1797–1798
for the Deerfield academy, the Pocumtuck Valley memorial
association (incorporated in 1870) has gathered an interesting
collection of colonial and Indian relics. Deerfield was one of the
first places in the United States to enter into the modern “arts
and crafts movement”; in 1896 many of the old household
industries were revived and placed upon a business basis. Most of
the work is done by women in the homes. The products, including
needlework and embroidery, textiles, rag rugs, netting,
wrought iron, furniture, and metal-work in gold and silver
embellished with precious and semi-precious stones, are annually
exhibited in an old-fashioned house built in 1710, and a large
portion of them are sold to tourists. There is an arts and crafts
society, but the profits from the sales go entirely to the workers.
The territory which originally constituted the township of Deerfield (known as Pocumtuck until 1674) was a tract of 8000 acres granted in 1654 to the town of Dedham in lieu of 2000 acres previously taken from that town and granted to Rev. John Eliot to further his mission among the Natick Indians. The rights of the Pocumtuck Indians to the Deerfield tract were purchased at about fourpence per acre, settlement was begun upon it in 1669, and the township was incorporated in 1673. For many years, Deerfield was the N.W. frontier settlement of New England. It was slightly fortified at the beginning of King Philip’s War, and after an attack by the Indians on the 1st of September 1675 it was garrisoned by a small force under Captain Samuel Appleton. A second attack was made on the 12th of September, and six days later, as Captain Thomas Lothrop and his company were guarding teams that were hauling wheat from Deerfield to the English headquarters at Hadley, they were surprised by Indians in ambush at what has since been known as Bloody Brook (in the village of South Deerfield), and Lothrop and more than sixty of his men were slain. From this time until the end of the war Deerfield was abandoned. In the spring of 1677 a few of the old settlers returned, but on the 19th of September some were killed and the others were captured by a party of Indians from Canada. Resettlement was undertaken again in 1682. On the 15th of September 1694 Deerfield narrowly escaped capture by a force of French and Indians from Canada. In the early morning of the 29th of February 1703–1704, Deerfield was surprised by a force of French and Indians (under Hertel de Rouville), who murdered 49 men, women and children, captured 111, burned the town, and on the way back to Canada murdered 20 of the captured. Among the captives was the Rev. John Williams (1664–1729), the first minister of Deerfield, who (with the other captives) was redeemed in 1706 and continued as pastor here until his death; in 1707 he published an account of his experiences as a prisoner, The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion, which has frequently been reprinted. From the original township of Deerfield the territory of the following townships has been taken: Greenfield (1753 and 1896), Conway (1767, 1791 and 1811), Shelburne (1768) and a part of Whately (1810).
See George Sheldon, A History of Deerfield (Deerfield, 1895); the History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (Deerfield, 1890 et seq.); and Pauline C. Bouvé, “The Deerfield Renaissance,” in The New England Magazine for October 1905.
DEER PARK, an enclosure of rough wooded pastureland for
the accommodation of red- or fallow-deer. The distinction
between a deer “park” and a deer “forest” is that the former
is always enclosed either by a wall or fence, and is relatively
small, whereas the forest covers a much larger area, and is not
only open but sometimes contains practically no trees at all.
Originally, the possession of a deer park in England was a royal
prerogative, and no subject could enclose one without a direct
grant from the crown—a licence to impark, like a licence to
embattle a house, was always necessary. When Domesday Book
was compiled, there were already thirty-one deer parks in England,
some of which may have existed in Saxon times; about
one-fourth of them belonged to the king. After the Conquest they
increased rapidly in number, but from about the middle of the
11th century this tendency was reversed. In the middle of the
16th century it was conjectured that one-twentieth of England
and Wales was given up to deer and rabbits. Upon Saxton’s
maps, which were made between 1575 and 1580, over 700 parks
are marked, and it is not improbable that the number was
understated. Mr Evelyn Philip Shirley enumerated only 334 in
his book on English Deer Parks published in 1867. To these
Mr Joseph Whitaker, in A Descriptive List of the Deer Parks of
England (1892), has added another fifty, and the total is believed
to be now about 400. It is a curious circumstance that despite
the rather minute detail of Domesday none of the parks there
enumerated can now be identified. There is, however, a plausible
case for Eridge Park in Sussex as the Reredfelle of Domesday.
The state and consequence of the great barons of the middle ages
depended in some measure upon the number of deer parks which
they possessed. Most bishops and abbots had one or two, and at
one time more than twenty were attached to the archbishopric
of Canterbury. When the power of the barons was finally broken
and a more settled period began with the accession of the house
