The Black-Tail Deer. J 39 



does the other. Most hunters would find it nearly as 

 difficult to watch in silence by a salt-lick throughout the 

 night, and then to butcher with a shot-gun a white-tail, as 

 it would be to walk on foot through rough ground from 

 morning till evening, and to fairly approach and kill a 

 black-tail ; yet there is no comparison between the degree 

 of credit to be attached to one feat and that to be at- 

 tached to the other. Indeed, if difficulty in killing is to 

 be taken as a criterion, a mink or even a weasel would 

 have to stand as high up in the scale as a deer, were the 

 animals equally plenty. 



Ranged in the order of the difficulty with which they 

 are approached and slain, plains game stand as follows : 

 big-horn, antelope, white-tail, black-tail, elk, and buffalo. 

 But, as regards the amount of manly sport furnished by 

 the chase of each, the white-tail should stand at the bot- 

 tom of the list, and the elk and black-tail abreast of the 

 antelope. 



Other things being equal, the length of an animal's 

 stay in the land, when the arch foe of all lower forms of 

 animal life has made his appearance therein, depends 

 upon the difficulty with which he is hunted and slain. 

 But other influences have to be taken into account. The 

 big-horn is shy and retiring ; very few, compared to the 

 whole number, will be killed ; and yet the others vanish 

 completely. Apparently they will not remain where they 

 are hunted and disturbed. With antelope and white-tail 

 this does not hold ; they will cling to a place far more 

 tenaciously, even if often harassed. The former being 

 the more conspicuous, and living in such open ground, is 



