Mule-deer 



121 



Fig. 39 — Mule-deer freak antlers. 



1. Killed in Eg^eria Park, Colo. Now in E. Carter Collection. 



2. IJlacktail horns of Whitetail type. Taken near Meeker, Colo., 1894, by E. Campbell. 



3. Taken near Meeker, Colo., in 1899, by Charles Givens. 



tells me that the cowboys of Routt and Rio Blanco counties 

 got the idea that they could improve the quality of their venison 

 by castrating a large number of bucks. In the spring round-up 

 of 1 89 1 or thereabouts they castrated every Blacktail fawn 

 they could find, and there were many. 



The only known result was that in the years that followed 

 some extraordinary freak antlers were seen among the Black- 

 tail. The most curious one that I saw is illustrated in Fig. 46. 



The tail of a Deer should always be noticed by the sports- tail 

 man. It is the surest easy external mark of identification for 

 those not skilled in anatomy; that of the Mule-deer is shown in 

 Fig. 37, No. 2. 



Though the coat in general is changed twice a year, the 

 hair on the tail, as Caton points out,^ is shed but once a year, 

 and the black switch on the tail of the present species is never 

 shed at all. Thus it has passed through many stages of a 



*Ant. and Deer Amer., 1S77, p. 242. 



