342- Game of Europe, W. & N. Asia & America 



the antlers is 27;^ inches, this being the dimension of ;i single antler in the 

 British Museum. 



The summer coat differs from the winter dress almost or quite as much 

 as in the roe- buck. Although there are individual variations ranging 

 between bay and yellowish, the general hue of the summer dress may be 

 best described as bright rufous chestnut on the upper- parts and outer 

 surface of the limbs, and white on the under-parts and inner side of the 

 legs ; the tail being dark brown above and white below, and the chin 

 showing a black band. In autumn the general colour changes to bluish 

 grey, with the throat and under-parts white. And in winter the hue ot 

 the upper-parts becomes yellowish grey speckled with brown ; the band 

 on the chin being dusky, and pure white prevailing on the throat, muzzle, 

 and chin, round the eyes, on the inner surfiice of the ears, thighs, and 

 buttocks, as well as over the entire under-parts and the lower surface of 



the tail. 



Typically from Virginia, this race of the whitetail extends over the 

 greater part of Eastern North America from Ontario, Canada, and Maine 

 to Florida, and westwards as far as the Missouri River below the boundary 

 between Canada and the United States. 



Writing in Outing for December 1900 of the present distribution of 

 the white-tailed deer (inclusive of its local varieties). Dr. G. B. Grinnell 

 remarks that it is still to be met with throughout the greater part of the 

 United States, and is found in limited numbers even in the densely popu- 

 lated districts of New England. It is, in fact, a species wdiich readily adapts 

 itself to changes, so that it flourishes in a country of which the primitive 

 condition has long since been much altered. But by contact with man 

 and his works the whitetail has developed a cunning and a sagacity far in 

 advance of what is natural to the species, so that it is now acknowledged to 

 be the most difficult of all North American mammals to stalk. 



In many parts of the North-Eastern and Southern States lands once 



