WHITE-TAILED DEER 



99 



Antlers of Virginian White-tailed Deer. From a specimen in the British Museum. 



WHITE-TAILED DEER (Mazama americana). 



With the exception of the wapiti, all the deer of America are 

 distinguished from those of the Old World, save the elk, roe, and milou 

 deer, by the absence of a brow-tine to the antlers, which are either 

 regularly forked or spike-like, and quite different from those of either the 

 roe or milou deer. In the white-tailed deer they are large and complex, 

 with a long sub-basal snag, and the front prong of the main fork 

 developed at the expense of the hinder, and carrying a number of snags 

 on its upper surface. Tail long. A gland-tuft on the hock, and a small 

 cylindrical white one with a black centre near the lower end of the hind 

 cannon-bone. Colour of upper parts chestnut in summer and bluish 

 gray in winter, with the under surface of the tail and the buttocks pure 

 white. Typically from Eastern North America, where the height at the 

 shoulder reaches to 3 feet i inch, but represented by numerous races 

 in other parts of the continent, which gradually decrease in size and 

 complexity of antlers towards the south, where they extend to Peru, 

 Bolivia, and Guiana. Weight of a specimen of the typical race shot 

 by Mr. Selous, 12 st. 7 Ibs. 



Mazama, it may be observed, is the oldest name for the American 

 deer, and must be employed if they are all included in one genus. If 

 they are split up, Mazama is the title for the brockets, while the white 

 tail and its allies should be called DorcelapJius the name Odocoilus, 

 used by American writers, having several things against it. 



