118 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



numbered as high as 200 Deer to the square mile in favourite 

 localities. But all localities are not equally good; 50 to the 

 square mile would be more representative. 



Yet everyone assured me that the Deer had greatly 

 decreased in late years; that, indeed, they were not half so 

 numerous as five years before, at which time 100 to the 

 square mile might have prevailed throughout this high and 

 favourite Deer country. The map shows that the chosen 

 area is about 200 square miles, which would imply 20,000 

 Deer — figures which are more than justified by the reports 

 of those who have watched along the main trail in the autumn, 

 when these Deer move out to their winter home on the lower 

 plains of Utah. 



The total area of Blacktail country is 2,500,000 square 

 miles. But it varies so in attractiveness that the Deer could 

 not average more than 5 to the square mile; 10,000,000 would 

 be a liberal allowance for the primitive Blacktail numbers. 

 Thus they were far less numerous than the Whitetail. 



On the other hand, they are far easier to kill. Their 

 habits and their haunts lay them open to wholesale slaughter 

 such as the Whitetail never knew. E. J. Duchesnay, C. E., 

 of Ottawa, Ont., tells me that in the later 8o's the winter haunts 

 of the Blacktail in southern British Columbia were invaded by 

 skin hunters. Thousands of the hides were sold at 25 cents a 

 piece and the meat left in the woods to rot — a shameless 

 destruction that finds a parallel among modern Egyptians, 

 who, in their brutal blindness, are using priceless ancient 

 papyri for fire-lighters. 



Such methods could have but one result — the desolation 

 of the range. 



In September, 1896, I rode for 15 miles across the Bad- 

 lands of the Little Missouri, with Howard Eaton, and saw 

 in that time 3 Blacktail. Ten years before he had made that 

 same ride and had seen 160. Since then they have further 

 diminished. These figures unfortunately represent the shrink- 

 age of the whole population. Although the nominal range is 

 little changed it is probable that the present number of this 



