The Columbia Blacktail 251 



scarce that you may think they have all left the 

 country. 



But toward August deer begin to move about 

 more, until it sometimes seems as if there must 

 have been a migration from some distant point. 

 The fawns are now large enough to take care of 

 themselves, and though they may stay with the 

 mother, she does not hesitate to leave them and 

 they are equally indifferent about losing her, both 

 well knowing that it is an easy matter to come 

 together again. The rutting time is also begin- 

 ning along the coast and in the midland ranges, 

 though it is later in the mountains. Consequently 

 the bucks begin to move over a larger area, stay 

 on foot much longer in the morning, and rise much 

 earlier in the evening. Deer now seem to love 

 open ground as much as they before avoided it. 

 Far away your eye may catch one by the sheen 

 of the sun on his lengthening hair, or, if in shade, 

 you may see him equally well by the dark spot 

 his autumn coat makes against the ground. It 

 takes keen eyes to do even this, and still keener 

 to detect one in brush by the faint movement it 

 may make in feeding, or when it shows only one 

 ear, round as a lobe of prickly pear and very much 

 like it, or when there is but a bit of rump with the 

 little black tail projecting from a bush. 



The action of the bucks during the rutting time 

 is much like that of the other deer. The does 



