324 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



mule deer. This indiscriminate application of names causes 

 much confusion to persons seeking a knowledge of the dis- 

 tribution of deer, unless they kill and examine the animals 

 themselves, or receive their information from some compe- 

 tent authority; but as there is no work thus far that de- 

 scribes the mammals of the United States, they must, if 

 they have had no experience, depend on a local naturalist 

 for their facts. 



Having made the acquaintance of the true black-tail on 

 the shores of the Pacific, and having never seen it east of 

 the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges, in California, Ore- 

 gon, or Washington Territory, I was rather surprised to 

 hear of it in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado; but, 

 on killing the species called by that name, I found it to be 

 the true C. macrotis. 



The black-tailed deer receives its technical name from 

 the Columbia River, and very justly, I should infer, for it 

 is found in greater numbers along the wooded portions of 

 that stream than in any other part of the Pacific Coast. It 

 is a true denizen of the woods, its favorite haunts being 

 amidst the deepest and dampest recesses of those gigantic 

 forests of firs and spruces which extend for hundreds of 

 miles along the shores of the Northern Pacific Ocean. 



It ranks next to the mule deer in size, being much larger, 

 fleeter, and heavier in frame than its Eastern congener^ the 

 Virginia deer. I have known some full-grown stags to at- 

 tain a weight of over two hundred and fifty pounds, but 

 the does are, of course, much lighter. I would also feel in- 

 clined to assert that it has few among its kindred that can 

 excel it in running and jumping, for I have seen it clear a 

 corral wall ten or twelve feet high, and I have often been 

 astonished at the ease with which it bounded over fallen 

 trees and their high, bare branches. I made some notes 

 of leaps which I have seen it make ; but as they have been 

 lost, I can only speak from memory ; and, depending on 

 that alone, I would say that it can clear a fourteen-feet wall 

 or fence. 



It is not so highly prized, from a gastronomic point of 



