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CHAPTEE XI. 



BLACK-TAILED DEER. 



(Cervus Macrotis.) 



THE black- tailed deer is the largest of the deer proper 

 in this country. He is a magnificent animal, sur- 

 passed by the elk in size, but not in beauty of outline 

 or grace of movement. 



When in good condition and on the alert, just 

 startled by an unusual sight or sound, he combines all 

 the beauty that the most exacting imagination could 

 desire. His splendidly proportioned body is set lightly 

 but firmly upon the most delicately tapering legs. A 

 glorious neck supports the most perfect head, crowned 

 with antlers, magnificent, not from size, but from 

 regularity and grace of curve. He steps as if walking 

 on air, and with head proudly aloft, flashing eyes, dilated 

 nostrils, attitude half of timidity, half of defiance ; even 

 a Landseer must despair and must fail to do justice to 

 the perfections of his noble proportions. I once saw 

 a small herd frightened by a train of cars on the Union 

 Pacific Eailroad, near Sherman. They made off at speed, 

 but in such a direction that by a sharp curve the train 

 emerged from the rocks directly across their line of 

 flight, and within thirty yards. The frightened oes 

 scattered in every direction. Not so a magnificent buck, 

 startled by the sudden appearance and close vicinity 

 of the snorting monster ; but, disdaining to fly, he drew 

 up and back his form, as if expecting but defying 



