132 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



and used to come when they were gone and chase the little 

 runt away. One day the hunter's partner saw the buck 

 throw the runt head over heels, so he seized his gun and 

 shot the bully dead. This was the only Deer they killed out 

 of season. 



When they came away, in the springtime, the runt was 

 there still, but had now grown quite fat. 



Through the winter and spring the young follow the 

 mother and get at least the advantage of wise leadership 

 and example. When about a year old they leave her, 

 probably because she compels them to do so, as an in- 

 stinctive preparation for the new family. There is reason, 

 however, for believing that the young does continue to 

 associate more or less with the mother all through their sec- 

 ond season. 



ENEMIES Next after the rifle-bearing hunter the worst enemy of 



the Mule-deer is deep snow. It forms a league with famine to 

 hide their food on the ground, and to prevent them travelling 

 in search of that which grows higher. It betrays them to yet 

 another foe — the Mountain Lion or Cougar. 



When the Blacktail bands come down the mountain to 

 settle in winter cover the Mountain Lion does the same. Now 

 he knows just where to find his prey; now, thanks to the snow, 

 it cannot escape him. He settles down then in the locality as 

 in a private game preserve, or like some epicure with a larder 

 stocked with game, so richly stocked, indeed, that he is tempted 

 into shameful waste. One Deer a week is all he possibly can 

 use, and yet I have been assured by such guides as Goff and 

 Leeds that in wantonness of slaughter he will kill two or three 

 a day until the band is all cleared out, then travel complacently 

 over the snow in search of another winter colony. 



Next to Lions we must place the Wolves, which also work 

 havoc in the winter yards, but of this I have seen nothing 

 personally. Coyotes, Lynxes, eagles, etc., take yearly toll of 

 the fawns, but they are not to be reckoned among the danger- 

 ous foes of the species. 



