DEEP RIVER, a tributary of Cape Fear river,. North Carolina, rising in Guilford co., and running through Randolph and Chatham counties to join the Haw. Its length is about 120 m., and it is navigable as far as the coal-mines. The coal-beds in its valley have been long known, but little worked. Their productive area is more than 40 sq.m., and the total deposit estimated at 240,000,000 tons. The coal is in part highly bitumi nous, in part semi-bituminous, in part anthracite ; all good. In places it is metamorphosed into graphite. Iron and copper ores are found near the coal.
DEER (Ger. thier, meaning " beast"—a sense which the Eng. deer once had; Gr. titer, Lat. fera), a Linnwan genus of ruminant quadrupeds, now constituting the family cercida', which some naturalists have divided into a number of genera, whilst others still regard it as forming only one, the distinctions between its groups not seeming to them sufficiently marked or important for generic characters. Deer are animals of graceful form, combining much compactness and strength with slenderness of limb and fleet ness. They use their powerful horns for weapons of defense, and sometimes of offense; but in general they trust to flight for their safety. They have a long neck, a small head, which they carry high, large cars, and large full eyes. In most of them there is, below each eye, a sac or fold of the skin, sometimes very small, sometimes of consider able size, called the suborbital sinus, lachrymal sinus, or tear-pit, the use of which is not well known. Deer have no cutting teeth in the upper, but eight in the lower jaw; the males have usually two short canines in the upper, but neither sex has any in the lower jaw; the prwmolars are three, and the true molars three on each side in each jaw. They are distinguished from all other ruminants by their branching horns (antlers), which in most of the species exist in the male sex only they are solid and deciduous, i.e., fall off annually, and are renewed with increase of size, and of breadth of palmation, and number of branches, according to the kind, until the animal has reached old age, when the size of the horns begins to diminish on each annual renewal. The size and develop ment of the horns are indeed closely connected with the sexual system, and their annual renewal takes place just in time for the rutting season, when they are much used in fierce combats. Females with diseased ovaries sometimes exhibit horns like those of the male.
The horn of a deer is a continuation of bone from the outer table of the skull, and is at first clothed with a, velvet-like covering (the " relret"), continuous with the outer integuments of the head, which, however, is soon rubbed off—the animal appearing to be impelled by some irritation to rub it against trees or rocks—leaving the horn hard and solid, with traces of the course of the many vessels which were employed for its production. The growth of the horn is very rapid. When the old horn has been cast,
there is a wound which bleeds a little, but is soon skinned over with a fine film, and the new horn almost immediately begins to sprout. Cast-horns are very rarely found in deer-forests, a circumstance that has never been quite satisfactorily accounted for. The growth of the horn is attended with much heat, and the blood-vessels which supply the head enlarge in size. The last part of the process is the formation of a rough circle of bony tubercles (the burr or pearl at the base of the horn, bearing some proportion to the size of the horn and the age of the animal. It is by these, as they enlarge, that the nutritive vessels of the " velvet" arc compressed and obliterated.—Deer are pretty uni formly clothed with hair, longer and thicker in those which inhabit cold, than in those which inhabit warm climates. The tail of all the species is short. The horns of some are broadly palmated, those of others are rounded; and importance has been attached in classification to their having or wanting a distinct snag or short branch projecting in front from the base of the antler; which Is present, for example, in the stag, fallow-deer, reindeer, and axis, and wanting in the roebuck, elk, and cariacou. The broad palma tion of the horns of species inhabiting the coldest climates has been supposed to be intended for turning over the snow in search of food. One of the most beautiful adapta tions in nature is a peculiarity of the foot of the reindeer, by which the hoofs separate to it remarkable width, and the greater, extent of surface prevents the foot from sinking in soft snow. Deer arc found in almost all parts of the globe except Australia and the s. of Africa. their place in the latter region being supplied by antelopes in extraor dinary- number and variety. Some of tbem live amidst the snows of very northerly regions, and some in tropical forests; the greater number inhabit the warmer temperate countries, and they arc chiefly found in wide plains and hills of moderate height, none dwelling on those lofty mountain summits which are the chosen abode of some animals of the kindred families of antilopido), eapridoe, and ntoschidce, as the chamois, the bouquetin, and the musk. The flesh (venison) of most kinds of deer is highly esteemed for the table, and they have long been regarded as among the noblest objects of the chase. Only one species, the reindeer, can be said to have been fully domesticated and reduced to the service of man; although individuals of many species have been rendered very tame.
See AXIS, CARIACOLT, ELK, FALLOW-DEER, :AIUNTJAK, 'REINDEER, ROSA, STAG, WAPITI, etc.—The musk (q.v.), although sometimes called musk-deer, is not of the deer family.