Encountering images of cute animals is an endless occupational task in implementing the Exploring project. Here is an image of a baby deer, a fawn, drinking milk from a bottle at Itasca State Park in 1917. Judging by the blurred tail, the fawn was quite eager to receive the nourishment. The man pictured is unidentified, but the photographer is Thomas Sadler Roberts, who was then the Associate Curator of the Zoological Museum at the University of Minnesota. Roberts captured several images of the fawn while on a trip to research beaver habitats in order to prepare a diorama for the museum.

More to come on beaver habitats, but for now, let us all just fawn over this cute creature…

(click on the images below for a larger version)

(From the glass plate negatives in the Bell Museum of Natural History collection)