MAMMALS OF OREGON 89 



usually disappeared and the horns are hard and in good fighting 

 trim. 



Food habits. Most of the food of these deer consists of browse 

 from the leaves, buds, tips of branches, seed capsules, and berries of 

 a great variety of trees, shrubs, and other plants. Not a trace of grass 

 could be found in the stomachs of a considerable number examined, 

 but this does not prove that they do not at times eat green grass. 

 They are fond of the leaves, buds, and seeds of many species of 

 Cecmothus, commonly called buckbrush or lilac, also of the ever- 

 green barberries, willows, mountain-mahogany, snowberry, blueberry, 

 raspberry, salmonberry, salal, and rose. In the fall they regularly 

 fatten on the abundant acorns as these fall from the trees or are 

 picked from the shrubby oaks. Flowers, fruit, ferns, fungi, and 

 lichens are also acceptable food. But this list of plants is a mere 

 fragment of what they undoubtedly choose as food. In a dense, 

 brushy, and forested country there is scarcely a limit to the food 

 supply for such animals. Most of the plants eaten are not taken by 

 any domestic stock. They are fond of salt and visit salt licks and the 

 ocean beaches. For the most of the year they are in good condition. 

 In the fall they become very fat and furnish one of the most delicious 

 of wild meats. 



Economic status. The value of these game animals, living almost 

 entirely on the waste products of the country and furnishing a valu- 

 able meat supply and a means of attracting a large number of people 

 to outdoor sport and exercise each year, cannot be overestimated. 

 The importance, therefore, of protecting and maintaining them in 

 large numbers is evident, and a thorough study of the habits, needs, 

 distribution, and abundance of the deer should form a basis for actual 

 control and maintenance of the game supply. 



ODOCOILEUS VIRGINIANUS LEUCURUS ( DOUGLAS) 



COLUMBIAN WHITE-TAILED DEER; WHITETAIL; FLAGTAIL; FANTAIL; MOWITCH of 



the Indians (D. D.) 



Cervus leucurus Douglas, Zool. Jour. 4: 330, 1829. 



Type locality. Falls of the Willamette and mouth of Columbia River, Oreg. 

 (Description based on specimens from both places.) 



General characters. Small, about as in typical virffwiarwst or smaller ; tail 

 not very long; skull small (pi. 23, A) ; horns small and slender and closely in- 

 curved; ears small; metatarsal glands, as usual in the whitetails, small and 

 below middle of metatarsus; skull slender with shallow lachrymal pits and 

 light molar teeth. Winter pelage (adult male from near Roseburg taken Jan. 

 4) : Body dark brownish gray, slightly darker along back of neck; forehead 

 dark brown; brisket, edge of ear tips, eyelids, nose pad, 3 spots on top and 

 sides of nose and 2 on sides of lower lip blackish ; top of tail and legs clear 

 ochraceous ; tip and lower surface of tail, belly, throat patch, lower lip and 

 edges of upper lips, inside and spot at base of ears, inside of legs to and 

 including heel gland and stripe down front legs to hoofs, leg and foot glands 

 white ; sides of nose and eyering light gray ; base of hairs on top of tail dusky. 

 Summer pelage and young not seen, but Douglas says they change to reddish 

 brown in summer and that the young are spotted with white until the middle 

 of the first winter. Skulls of 3-or 4-year-old bucks from near Roseburg are 

 small and slender with slender rostrums, flat frontal regions, deep pits above 

 orbits, narrow nasals and palates and very small, slender, closely incurved 

 antlers. 



Measurements. Tanned skin from near Roseburg, adult male: Total length, 

 1,575 mm (62 in,) ; tail, 178 (7) ; hind feet imperfect; ear, inside, 110 (4%), 



