MULE DEER. 95 



soon seems to weai-y. Once when sitting on a crag on the Rocky 

 Mountains, 10,000 feet above the sea, I watched one which had 

 been started by a companion, as he bounded through the valley 

 a thousand feet below. In a run of half a mile he showed evi- 

 dent fatigue. That the labor of such a motion is greater than 

 that of the long, graceful leaps of the common deer, must be 

 manifest to all who observe them. 



Their limbs are larger and coarser than those of the common 

 deer, and they are less agile and elastic in their motions, and are 

 less graceful in form. Their large disproportioned ears are their 

 most ugly feature and give tone to the whole figure. 



The summer coat is a pale, dull yellow. Towards fall this is 

 replaced by a fine short black coat, which rapidly fades to gray. 

 As the season advances the hairs of the winter coat grow larger, 

 and so become more dense as well as of a lighter color. Usually 

 in the forehead is a dark, bent line in the form of a horseshoe, 

 with the toe downwards. The brisket and belly are black, grow- 

 ing lighter towards the umbilicus ; thence posteriorly a still 

 lighter shade prevails, till at the inguinal region a dull white 

 prevails ; between the thighs it is quite white, widening towards 

 the tail. This white portion extends to one inch above the tail, 

 where it is six inches broad. Lower down it is eight inches 

 broad, and lower still between the legs it contracts to four inches 

 in breadth. Viewed posteriorly this white patch is a conspicu- 

 ous object. 



Below the knees and elbows the legs are of a uniform dark 

 cinnamon color. 



Ceevus MACROTis, Var. Californicus. 



I first discovered this deer near Santa Barbara, California, in 

 1870, and described it in the American Natui'alist} It is a very 

 distinct variety of the Mule Deer, but is unmistakably a Macrotis. 

 It occupies all of Southern California, but whether it has ex- 

 cluded the more numerous variety along the northern coast of 

 the Pacific, I am not fully prepared to say. 



Judging from the specimens which I have examined, this new 

 variety is not as large as the other, is of a more tawny shade, 

 its ears are not quite so large, and the tail is longer. The most 

 pronounced difference is in the color of the upper side of the tail. 

 On this variety there is a line or stripe of the color on the back 

 above, passing down the top of the tail all the way to the tei'- 



1 Vul. X., p. 464 (August, 1876). 



