Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/765

 DEERFIELD DEER GRASS 761 gin and appropriateness of the common name are very evident. The length of a female mea- sured by Audubon and Bachman was 4f ft. to the root of the tail, and the tail to end of hair 10 in. ; the height at the shoulders 3J ft., at the rump 3 ft. ; length of ears 7 in. ; the weight 132 Ibs. The male would be considera- bly larger than this. Their habits are more like those of the stag than of the common deer ; they fly far from the settlements, and when started run a mile or two before stopping. The female brings forth one or two young in the month of June. This species ranges along the eastern sides of the Rocky mountains, from 54 N. to northwestern Texas ; it is found on the upper Missouri and Platte rivers and in Oregon, not extending to the Pacific. In the genus coassus (Gray; subulo, H. Smith), the horns are simple, straight, and round, like those of a deer of the first year, and inclining backward; the ears are short, broad, and al- most naked; tail short; face rather convex; the fur short, elongated into a tuft on the fore- head; legs without any external metatarsal tuft, but with a pencil of hairs on the inside of the hocks ; the suborbital pit is small and shal- low. This genus, which includes the brockets, is confined to tropical South America; they are of small size, living in woods and jungles. The pita brocket (0. rufus, F. Ouv.) is of a shining red color, with the crown and neck gray ; the young are spotted with white, and the females are of a lighter red, with more gray. They inhabit the low, moist woods, and are polygamous, there being about ten females in company with one male ; they are very fleet for a short distance, but are soon tired out. The height at the shoulders is about two feet. The apara brocket (G. nemorivagus, F. Cuv.) is about 26 inches long, and resembles a sheep more than a deer. The lo wer parts of the head and lips are whitish ; the inside of the fore legs, and from the lower breast to the buttocks, pale cinnamon-colored ; the neck and rest of the body grayish brown. The eyebrowed brocket (C. supercMiaris, Gray) differs from the pita in the deeply arched muffle and the white stripe over the eyes. The large-eared brocket (C. auritus, Gray) resembles the Asiatic muntjac in color, and the ears are large, broad, more than half the length of the head, with two lines of hairs. All these species inhabit Brazil and the eastern coast. On the western coast is another spe- cies, the venada deer (C.pudu, Mol.), with ears thickly covered with hair, a deep suborbital pit, and large molars ; the fur is rufous, black- ish in front and behind ; the ears and tail are very short. It inhabits Chili. DEERFIELD, a town of Franklin co., Massa- chusetts, on the "W. bank of the Connecticut, at its junction with Deerfield river, and on the Connecticut River railroad, 90 m. W. by N. of Boston ; pop. in 1870, 3,632. It was settled in 1670, and is the seat of an academy. The principal village is situated on a plain nearly 100 ft. below the general level of the Connec- ticut valley. It is regularly built, and the main street is shaded with fine trees. A bridge, 750 ft. long and 90 ft. above the water, spans the Deerfield river. Deerfield moun- tain, rising 700 ft. above the plain, commands an extensive view. On the bank of the Con- necticut, in the S. part of the town, Sugar Loaf mountain, a conical peak of red sandstone, rises to a height of 500 ft. About a mile N. W. of this is the village of Bloody Brook, or South Deerfield, the scene of an Indian massa- cre in 1675, when Capt. Thomas Lathrop and 76 of the 84 men under his command were slain, having fallen into an ambuscade while trans- porting stores to Hadley. A stone slab marks the spot where Lathrop and about 30 of his men were buried, and in 1838 a marble monu- ment was erected in front of one of the church- es. In the winter of 1704 Deerfield was at- tacked in the night by a party of French and Indians, and all but the church and one dwell- ing was burned; 36 of the inhabitants were killed, and 108, including the minister, the Rev. John Williams, and his family, were made captive. Of these, 13 were slain in the fields after leaving the town, and the rest were hur- ried on foot through the wilderness to Canada ; some died, and some, unable to keep up, were killed on the way. Those who survived were released in the autumn of 1706 ; but the young- est daughter of Mr. Williams remained with the Indians, and subsequently married a chief of the tribe. In the following year Mr. Williams published "The Redeemed Captive," an in- teresting account of his adventures. Among other relics of the Indian wars, an old door of massive woodwork, bearing tomahawk scars and bullet holes, is still preserved. It is the sole remnant of the blockhouse which the early settlers built for protection against the savages. DEER GRASS (rhexia Virginica, Linn.), the New England representative of the Asiatic Deer Grass (Rhexia Virginica). family of plants called melastomacece, of which only eight species are found in the United