ORNAMENTAL COAT. 159 



interspersed among the colored hairs, so that I had a light gray 

 elk instead of a spotted elk. The year following that, the white 

 hairs were very much diminished in number, but still were dis- 

 tinctly observable on several parts of the body and one leg. 

 Since then, her coat has been undistinguishable from the other 

 females of tfie herd. I liave since several times observed on 

 adult female elk, well defined spots of clear white hairs from 

 one to four inches in diameter, but I have never found these to 

 occur the second time on the same animal. 



On the Virginia deer it is not uncommon to find a white hair 

 scattered here and there in the coat, and I once had a doe on 

 whose forehead, Avhen a year old, a clear white spot appeared 

 about half an inch in diameter. This was observed for two years 

 and then disappeared, and never after was anything observed pe- 

 culiar about the markings of this deer. Between these fugitive 

 and transitory white spots observed on individual members of sev- 

 eral species, and the perfect white coat and red eyes of the true 

 albino, every imaginable gradation may be met with. I have 

 mounted in my collection a Virginia doe about half the body of 

 which is white, the balance is the normal color ; the lines of 

 junction of the two colors are well defined. While we are in the 

 habit of calling such specimens albinos, they are probably not so 

 in fact, but rather have exceptional markings which are present 

 but a single year, or at most but a few years. These abnormal 

 markings are far more abundant on Cervus Columlnanus than on 

 either of the other species. On an examination of a large lot of 

 pelts of this deer in Portland, Oregon, I found a great many thus 

 marked. I saw none that were pure white but some that were 

 nearly so, others with but a little white upon them. I selected 

 a skin for ray collection, which I thought the most beautiful 

 among those I examined, which I have now. The body is cov- 

 ei-ed with a white ground. All over this are scattered numerous 

 spots of different sizes and various colors. Most of them are 

 either black or approaching the normal color of the animal. 



I have met but one true albino deer ; that was of the common 

 species, in a park in the city of Philadelphia, many years ago. 

 It was a good sized buck, as white as snow all over, and I have 

 no doubt had red eyes, though I was not near enough to de- 

 termine that question. I have heard of several others. That true 

 albino Columbia deer are very common in Washington Terri- 

 tory, I cannot doubt. White deer are there so abundant in cer- 

 tain localities, that some have supposed they were a distinct spe- 



