They increase to a certain extent with the population. The reason of
this appears to be, that they find protection in the neighbourhood of
man from the beasts of prey that assail them in the wilderness, and from
whose attacks their young particularly can with difficulty escape.
They suffer most from the wolves, who hunt in packs like hounds, and
who seldom give up the chase until a deer is taken. We have often sat,
on a moonlight summer night, at the door of a log-cabin in one of our
prairies, and heard the wolves in full chase of a deer, yelling very
nearly in the same manner as a pack of hounds. Sometimes the cry would
be heard at a great distance over the plain: then it would die away, and
again be distinguished at a nearer point, and in another direction;--now
the full cry would burst upon us from a neighbouring thicket, and we
would almost hear the sobs of the exhausted deer;--and again it would be
borne away, and lost in the distance. We have passed nearly whole nights
in listening to such sounds; and once we saw a deer dash through the
yard, and immediately past the door at which we sat, followed by his
audacious pursuers, who were but a few yards in his rear.
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