ON THE ZOOLOGICAL POSITION OF TEXAS. 11 



nor trail, and since a failure to strike the narrow sources of the creeks 

 I sought, might involve another twenty miles of waterless prairie, I 

 eagerly directed my way towards the first larger vegetation that sug- 

 gested springs. The ravine above mentioned contained numerous large 

 hackherrj" and pecan trees, and a dense undergrowth of shrubs. It had 

 evidently contained several pools in the spring, but now everything was 

 dry. A pair of large owls ruled the darker shades, while the scored 

 condition' of the naked and dusty ground indicated terrestrial animals 

 of some strength. I suddenly came on the herd of peccaries. Those not 

 directly in sight fled into the thicket, but there was no retreat in the 

 actions of the half dozen that I met fairly. They stood in a row look- 

 ing down their noses, which were pointed to the earth, the long black 

 and white mottled bristles of their backs rising and falling. I stood in 

 front quietly watching them, and one by one they trotted off in a 

 leisurely manner, the last to remain being an old boar larger than the 

 rest. 



Cariacus leuciirtis, the white-tailed deer. This is the common deer of 

 Western Texas, and I saw it repeatedly, both wild and captive, and in- 

 pected a large collection of its horns in San Antonio. In thirty or forty 

 pairs of horns I found six or eight specimens in which the inferior or first 

 posterior antler was enlarged and more or less extensively forked, as in the 

 C. macrotis. It is rarely forked to the same extent as in that species, 

 but I saw two or three specimens which I could not have distinguished 

 from those of the C. macrotis. I was assured by the gentleman who 

 shot the deer that they differed in no resi^ect from those which bore the 

 ordinary form of horn. 



Cariacus macrotis, the black-tailed deer. This species I did not see, 

 and I was informed by various persons that it did not range south of 

 the Concho Eiver, or the line of the second steppe or i)lateau. 



Antiloca]}ra americana, antelope. This ruminant is found on the 

 plains of the dry region at all elevatioui^, extending its range southward 

 to Fort Inge, and even to Laredo, in latitude 27° 30'. Eastward it is 

 found in the north as far as Fort Worth, but I did not hear of it on the 

 plains east of the first i^lateau. 



Bos americanus, bison. The buffalo herd comes into Northwestern 

 Texas in winter to the eastward of the Staked Plains, on the second and 

 first plateaus. It does not range south of the two-thousand-foot steppe 

 in the west, i)assing but a short distance below the Concho Eiver. 



