Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/150

 the chicken; but not to the same extent could this be asserted of the animals, since there were many species in the new country that are only seen in the prim&aelig;val forests of thinly inhabited regions. The principal animal discovered in aboriginal Virginia by the first adventurers was the deer. In spite of its ruthless destruction in the peninsula between the James and the York by the Indians, that peninsula being especially adapted to the successful pursuit of their method of fire hunting, many were observed by the founders of Jamestown in the country adjacent to that place. On the Eastern Shore deer were less numerous, and for the same reason, but towards the heads of the peninsulas they became more numerous, until in the upland savannahs, where there was a luxuriant growth of reeds and grasses, they were found in vast herds, and so tame as to remain undisturbed by the approach of men. Two varieties were represented, the red and the fallow, the fallow differing but little from the fallow deer of England except in the smaller number of the branches of their antlers. The fallow deer of Virginia sometimes dropped as many as four fawns at a birth, and rarely less than two; Hamor,