The Moose, Caribou, and Small Deer. 137 



like that of the white-tail, is hardly a trophy about which a travelled 

 sportsman will wax very enthusiastic. On some of the islands round 

 Vancouver Island, and in many parts of the latter, it is very plentiful 

 as has already been shown in a previous chapter. 



When speaking of the mule deer and black-tailed deer one 

 must, of course, not confuse the scientific with the popular 

 nomenclature, for the Montana, Idaho, and Colorado professional 

 hunter or guide, who has never seen a true black-tailed deer, insists 

 in calling the familiar mule deer a black-tail, the black tassel at the 

 end of its tail exercising apparently an irresistible attraction that 

 way. At the same time, the most ignorant hunter will not bunch 

 the two species together, for he knows there is a Pacific coast 

 deer. In this, as in many other similar cases, not only the 

 Western hunter, but also the educated sportsman, runs counter 

 to the decision arrived at long ago by his own scientific men, 

 amongst whom Caton and the late Professor Baird occupy, of 

 course, a foremost rank. Thus most, if not all, the new sporting 

 literature of the United States, including the thoroughly well 

 got up publications of the Boone and Crockett Club (which 

 contain very reliable accounts of modern sport in the west), almost 

 invariably speaks of the mule deer as the black-tail deer. No 

 doubt this name will soon be as ingrained in the language of 

 American sport as is the equally erroneous appellation of elk to 

 describe the animal which should be called wapiti. For centuries 

 the European moose has been known as the elk or elch, and 

 hence, if only on account of priority, the name elk should not 

 have been bestowed by American sportsmen upon an entirely 

 .different species of deer, and all the more so as the American 

 moose and the European elk are one and the same animal. 



Now that everything connected with the wonderfully rich 

 ferx nature of North America is receiving much more attention 

 than formerly in the United States, some decision respecting 

 the black-tailed deer by an authoritative body of sportsmen, such 

 as the Boone and Crockett Club, would be most desirable and 

 prevent the confusion now existing in this interesting department 



