for a period of years, and in this case may bring a large rental to their owners. The annual rental value of the larger deer forests ranges from $5,000 to $20,000 or even more, and the total rental of the deer forests of Scotland has been set down at over $1,000,000 per annum. Every stag killed costs the person who rents the ground about 50 guineas. A deer forest is always an expensive affair, not only for the rent that has to be paid, but also for the number of keepers, gillies, watchers, beaters, etc., that have to be employed in connection with it.

DEER-GRASS (Rhexia virginica), one of the American representatives of the large family of plants called Melastomacea, meadow-beauty family, of which only about 20 species are found in the United States. The deer-grass extends from Maine to Florida and west to Illinois, Missouri and Louisiana. Other species extend the habitat of the genus to Texas. The flowers are conspicuous and showy, with bright rosy purple petals, and render the meadows unusually gay when adorned with patches of this lovely plant, entitling it to the common name of the meadow-beauty.

DEER-MOUSE (Peromyscus leucopus), the common white-footed mouse of North America, a rodent of the family Muride. The main color of its body is buff or fawn, growing dark along the back, the feet and under parts being snowy white. With full, bright eyes, high, rounded ears, long whiskers and tail, graceful and sprightly movement, it is a very attractive little animal. It has been found to have small cheekpouches. Its length rarely exceeds four inches, its tail being nearly as long. In different sections of the country its markings and habits are varied, and in some it seeks a home in the human dwelling, as do other mice. Also the jumping mouse, Zapus hudsonius.

DEER-STALKING, an exciting but laborious mode of hunting the red-deer, in which, on account of the extreme shyness of the game, their far-sightedness and keen sense of smell, they have to be approached by cautious mancuvring before a chance of obtaining a shot occurs. Great patience and tact and a thorough knowledge of the ground are essential to a good stalker, who has to undergo many discomforts in crouching, creeping and wading through bogs, etc. Advance from higher to lower ground is usually made, since the deer are always apt to look to the low ground as the source of danger. "Deer-driving" toward a point where the shooters are concealed is often practised, but is regarded as poor sport by the true deer-stalker.

DEERFIELD, Mass., town of Franklin County, on the Connecticut River and the Boston and Maine and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads, 33 miles north of Springfield. It is an agricultural region, and its industries are chiefly related to agricultural products. It has also manufactures of pocket books and art novelties. It has a high school, Deerfield Academy and a public library. The town contains the village of South Deerfield, and in colonial times was the scene of several contests with the Indians. Among them were the "Bloody Brook Massacre" (1675) and the burning of the village by the French and Indians under De Rouville (1703). Old Deerfield has a beautiful soldiers' monument, and there

is at South Deerfield a marble monument commemorative of the Bloody Brook disaster. Eliza Allen Starr, author and art teacher, was born in Deerfield. The waterworks are owned by the municipality. The government is administered by annual town meetings. Pop. 2,209. Consult Sheldon, A History of Deerfield, Mass. (Deerfield 1895-96), and Powell, Historic Towns of New England' (New York 1898).

DEERFIELD RIVER, a river in Massachusetts, rising in southern Vermont and flowing generally southeast for 60 miles, when it enters the Connecticut River. The great fall of the river of nearly 1,100 feet in 50 miles furnishes water power at many places, of which the chief are at the Hoosac Tunnel and Shelburne Falls. Several streams nearly as large as the main river enter it from the north.

DEERFOOT, famous runner: b. Cattaraugus_reservation, Buffalo, 1828; d. there, 18 Jan. 1897. A half-breed Seneca Indian, he was taken to England in 1861 and matched against the best long-distance runners, defeating nearly all of them. He lost a six-mile race against Mills in September 1861, but defeated White in a four-mile contest a few days later, and directly after outran both of those experts in a 10mile championship. He beat Levett and Mills (12 miles) at Dublin for $500 in 65 minutes, and Howitt-the "American Deer," in London (four miles). He made a record of 11 miles 720 yards in one hour (London, October 1862), and 111⁄2 miles in one hour less six seconds February 1863); another record was 11 miles and 12 miles in 57 minutes and 62 minutes respectively.

DEERHOUND, the Scottish greyhound used for deer-hunting. See DOG.

DEERSLAYER, The. The Deerslayer,' last of the Leather-Stocking tales, which Fenimore Cooper published in 1841, is first in the order of events narrated in that famous series. The actions take place on and about Otsego Lake between 1740 and 1745. According to Cooper's own words, the "legend is purely fiction, no authority existing for any of its facts, characters, or other peculiarities," but "the descriptions of scenery in the tale are reasonably accurate." Essentially a romance, full of a dewy freshness, with large, bland, eloquent landscapes, and full of the forest philosophy which underlies the whole of Cooper's conception of Leather-Stocking, the book is at the same time, like all his later novels, considerably realistic. The dialect is careful, the woodcraft generally sound. The reality of the piece, however, comes chiefly from the reasoned presentation of the central issue: the conflict in Leather-Stocking between the forces which draw him to the woods and those which seek to attach him to his human kind. The same conflict had figured in earlier volumes of the series, but here it is more appealing than ever before because the hero is in the warm morning of his youth and must choose his career even against the enticements of love. It is hard to tell whether it is at the prescription of romance or at the demand of realism that he chooses his native forests; he is enough a romantic personage to prefer the wilderness, and yet his victory is not a romantic victory but a victory realistically in keeping with his total character. What helps him to his choice is that Judith Hutter,