116 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



We are trying to get all states that have gray squirrels to 

 make laws to protect them at all times, to take them out of the 

 list of game animals and put them in the list of protected birds. 

 The gray squirrel is too scarce now, too beautiful and too valu- 

 able to be killed for fun. When cultivated and taken care of 

 they become very tame. In fact, they take more readily to 

 the friendly advances of human beings than any other wild 

 animal. 



The skunk is another pirate. He hunts birds, eggs and 

 young birds all night and eats all he can find. So whenever you 

 are out hunting and can find one of these put him out of busi- 

 ness. Fortunately, his skin is valuable and the trappers have 

 sport hunting him. 



There are three species of deer in this country — the Vir- 

 ginia deer in the east and middle west, and so called because it 

 was first found and described in Virginia three or four hundred 

 years ago. It ranges west to the Rocky Mountains. There it 

 mixes with another species known as the mule deer, the one 

 shown in this picture, so named on account of its large ears. It 

 ranges all through the Rocky Mountain country and west to 

 the summit of the Cascade ranges. There it is replaced by the 

 third species, the black-tailed deer, in Wyoming and Montana 

 and Colorado — the people call this (indicating picture) the 

 black-tailed deer, but that is a misnomer. This is not the black- 

 tailed deer at all. This deer's tail is white, except that it has 

 a few black hairs on the end, while the black-tailed deer has a 

 black tail from start to finish. So when you hear a Colorado 

 man, or a Montanian, or a Wyoming man talking about a black- 

 tailed deer you may know he means a mule deer. 



The young of all species of deer are spotted at birth, and 

 they wear their spots until six or eight months old. Then the 

 spots disappear and the fawns take on the color of the adult 

 animal. The fawns are easily tamed and they make delightful 

 playmates for the little folks. Unfortunately, when the male 

 deer grows up he is likely to become vicious and has to be put 

 away. 



You have all heard of the abundance of wild animals in the 

 Yellowstone National Park and how easy it is to go in there and 

 photograph them, but this (indicating picture of a bear) is not 

 one of those animals. This old chap lived and does yet, so far 

 as we know, in the Sawtooth mountains, some three or four 

 hundred miles south of the park. A man killed a deer in the 



