THE BLACK-TAILED AND VIRGINIA DEER. 33 Y 



color of the body is a pale fawn. It is light and graceful 

 in movement, and rather proud in aspect when gazing at 

 an object. 



It is very abundant in Southern Arizona, where it fre- 

 quents the coniferous forests of the mountains. The bucks 

 often wander as high as three or four thousand feet, as 

 they obtain plenty of food at that altitude in the bunch- 

 grass and tender shrubbery. The does keep to the thick- 

 ets while their young are with them, but during the run- 

 ning season they scamper about in every direction. These 

 dwarfs are so little hunted, and so numerous, that they 

 show no fear of man unless they scent him to the wind- 

 ward; hence they may be approached to within fifty or 

 sixty yards, and a group shot down, before they become 

 alarmed enough to flee. 



As they feed abroad during the daytime, owing to their 

 immunity from foes, they may be readily found at all 

 times; and this gives the hunter an opportunity of making 

 a larger bag than he could probably boast of in any other 

 part of the world. 



By summarizing the various species of the deer family 

 found in the West and South-west, we find, excluding the 

 caribou, which rarely comes south of the fifty-fourth paral- 

 lel, that there are five distinct species, and five varieties, al- 

 lowing that the white-tail is a variety of the Virginia deer. 

 The species are the moose, wapiti, mule deer, black-tail, and 

 Virginia deer; and the varieties are the burro, or jackass 

 deer, of California, the dwarf deer of Sonora and Arizona, 

 the white-tail, and the spotted and the white deer. It is ev- 

 ident, therefore, that the Cervidm are well represented in 

 the country ; and as for numbers, they cannot be equalled 

 in any portion of the continent. 



The methods employed in the West for hunting deer are 

 confined to three; and these are stalking, driving, and still- 

 hunting at night with a lamp or a torch. The two first are 

 considered legitimate sport; but the latter is tabooed by 

 all true lovers of the gun, as it does not give the animals 

 any chance for their life, and they are shot as easily as a 



15 



