VIRGINIA DEER. 



Cariacus Virginianus. — Gray. 



THE Virginia Deer, in one or another of its varieties, is univer- 

 sally distributed throughout the United States and an east 

 and west belt of country including the southern portions of the 

 British Possessions, but probably not extending north of the fifty- 

 fourth parallel of latitude. It is however a lover of the forests and 

 of dense cover, and on the high plains of the Missouri region is 

 confined chiefly to the wooded river bottoms. There are tew bet- 

 ter deer ranges than the willowy banks and islands of the Platte, 

 the Running Water, the Yellowstone and the Missouri Rivers, and 

 deer started from the neighborhood of these streams take refuge 

 for a time on the wide plains above, but return to their cover as 

 soon as possible. The deer of the Rocky Mountains has been 

 dignified by the varietal name viacroiirus, but it seems to us some- 

 what doubtful whether it deserves to be separated from its more 

 eastern relative the true Virginianns. There is a very wide range 

 of size among the deer of some portions of the Mountains, and it 

 is not unusual for a hunter to kill in the same localities fine bucks 

 fully equalling in size the largest eastern deer, and others appa- 

 rently just as old which weigh but half as much. 



The true Virginia Deer is an inhabitant of the United States 

 as far west as the plains, and occurs in more or less abundance in 

 every State from Maine to Texas. In Florida and in the other 

 Gulf States these animals following well-known laws of geographi- 

 cal variation are much smaller than farther to the northward. West 

 of the plains occurs, as has been said, the variety macroiirus, said 

 to be somewhat smaller and with a proportionately longer tail, 

 denominated in frontier parlance the White-tailed Deer, to distin- 

 guish it from its congeners the Mule Deer and the true Black-tail 

 of the Sierras. In Arizona a still smaller variety is met with which 



