982 THE UNGULATES, OR HOOFED MAMMALS 



another head in the same collection the total length of the antlers is thirty-two 

 inches, with an extreme span of thirty-seven inches. The right antler of this head 

 has an additional tine depending from just below the main fork an aberration not 

 unfrequently found in the Virginian deer, where it may occur on both sides. 



In height the mule-deer is fully equal to the Virginian deer, but it is a more 

 stoutly built and much less graceful animal, with proportionately-shorter limbs, 

 while the ears are nearly double the dimension of those of the latter. The tail is 

 short, and quite unlike that of any other deer, being cylindrical, naked below, and 

 covered above with short white hairs, terminating in a long brush of black ones. In 

 summer the coat of the mule-deer is very thin and sparse, and generally of a reddish 

 color, with a large white patch on the buttocks; but in winter the general color is 

 steel gray, the individual hairs being tipped with black. There is much more white 

 on the face than in the Virginian deer. In a variety from California the color of 

 the pelage is more decidedly red, and there is a black line running along the middle 

 of the upper surface of the tail. 



Mr. Grinnell states that "the mule-deer is found throughout the 

 greater part of the Missouri-river district, and thence westward on the 

 plains, in the Rocky mountains, and in the Sierra Nevada. It is an inhabitant of 

 rough, broken country, and on the plains is usually only to be found about high 

 buttes, in the bad lands, or where the country is diversified with rocky ridges, dotted 

 here and there with scattered pines or junipers. Its favorite resorts are the coulees, 

 gulches, and canons which so often break up the high table-lands of the central pla- 

 teau of the continent; but it is as often to be found among the green valleys high up 

 on the mountain sides, or, in summer, among the low trees that grow just below the 

 snow line. It is to such localities as the last named that the bucks resort during the 

 summer when they are growing their antlers, and when their thin coat of hair af- 

 fords them little or no protection against the flies. ' ' 



It appears that the habitat of this deer has not been very much restricted by 

 advancing civilization, as it is much less alarmed by the invasion of its haunts than 

 is the wapiti. Instead of running in the even manner of the Virginian deer, mule- 

 deer progress by a series of bounds, all their feet leaving the ground simultaneously. 

 For a short distance their pace is rapid, but it soon slackens. As in the case of the 

 Virginian deer, the number of fawns produced at a birth is nearly always two. 

 These are born at the end of May or beginning of June, and retain their spots till 

 September. The pairing season is in September and October. 



By the hunters in Colorado this deer is commonly spoken of as the black-tail, 

 although that name properly belongs to C. columbianus. 



The Columbian black-tailed deer (C. columbianus} is a species with a 

 Black-Tailed 



Deer very restricted distribution, being apparently confined to the mountain 



ranges bordering the Pacific in the neighborhood of the Columbia 

 river, and unknown to the eastward of the Sierra Nevada. This deer is rather 

 smaller than the mule-deer, with relatively-smaller ears, but nearly similar antlers. 

 The comparatively-short cylindrical tail is black throughout, except for a short strip 

 of about one-fourth the circumference running along the under surface. The gen- 

 eral color of the pelage in winter is tawny gray, with white on the under parts and 



