CHAPTER V 

 THE BLACK-TAIL DEER 



FAR different from the low-scudding, brush-lov 

 ing white-tail, is the black-tail deer, the deer of 

 the ravines and the rocky uplands. In general shape 

 and form, both are much alike; but the black-tail is 

 the larger of the two, with heavier antlers, of which 

 the prongs start from one another, as if each of the 

 tines of a two-pronged pitchfork had bifurcated; 

 in some cases it looks as if the process had been again 

 repeated. The tail, instead of being broad and 

 bushy as a squirrel s, spreading from the base, and 

 pure white to the tip, is round and close haired, with 

 the end black, though the rest is white. If an ordi 

 nary deer is running, its flaunting flag is almost its 

 most conspicuous part ; but no one would notice the 

 tail of a black-tail deer. 



All deer vary greatly in size; and a small black- 

 tail buck will be surpassed in bulk by many white- 

 tails; but the latter never reaches the weight and 

 height sometimes attained by the former. The same 

 holds true of the antlers borne by the two animals; 

 on the average those of the black-tail are the heavier, 

 and exceptionally large antlers of this species are 

 larger than any of the white-tail. Bucks of both 



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