126 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



the Lookout Hill, and sometimes went as far west as the 

 Sewell woods and south to the Big Swamp, but never, so far 

 as I could learn, more than four or five miles from their 

 central woods. To this they always returned in a few days, 

 as it abounded in good cover and the peavine that affords 

 their favourite winter food. 



Another band that I knew in the eastern sandhills showed 

 the same adherence to a small locality along Pine Creek. The 

 farthest south at which I found these at any time was Lee's 

 Sandhill, that is, 4 or 5 miles from home. 



From these observations and the corroboration of several 

 hunters I conclude that the winter range of the Blacktail is 

 but five or six miles across. In more open country it may 

 be larger, in rougher country very much smaller. 



During the summer I suspect they are satisfied with a 

 still more limited home ground, since the hunters and hunger — 

 their two great incentives to travel — are then inoperative. 



In Colorado I was told of one large buck that for five 

 years inhabited the little valley of Iker's Creek. 



I remember a Deer, a barren doe, that lived all summer 

 (1892) on the south side of Chaska-water (west of Carberry, 

 Manitoba), within a mile of the lake. I am not sure that it 

 was the same animal, but think so, because the Deer were 

 exceedingly scarce that year; I saw tracks of only one Deer, 

 never those of bucks or fawns; I saw these near the water, but 

 none whatever in the belt of country farther away on each side; 

 its whole range, then, was less than two square miles. 



Thus each fresh observation seems to reduce further 

 the extent of the individual range. Nevertheless, I think 

 that the Blacktail's home region is larger than that of the 

 Whitetail. 



LIFE The opening of the year with the Romans, the Indians, and 



all the wild things, including the Blacktail Deer, is the end of 

 winter. Then comes the new birth, the new hope, the new 

 start, the real new year. Let us, therefore, begin to follow 

 the Blacktail from the New Year's Day of the Wilds. 



