236 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



they often came down to graze on the flats within view 

 of the different ranch-houses where I happened to stop. 

 The hours for feeding and resting, however, always vary 

 accordingly as the deer are or are not persecuted. In 

 wild localities I have again and again found these deer 

 grazing at all hours of the day, and coming to water 

 at high noon ; whereas, where they have been much per- 

 secuted, they only begin to feed after dusk, and come to 

 water after dark. Of course during this winter weather 

 they could get no water, snow supplying its place. 



I was immensely interested with the way they got 

 through the wire fences. A mule-deer is a great jumper; 

 I have known them to clear with ease high timber corral 

 fences surrounding hayricks. If the animals had chosen, 

 they could have jumped any of the wire fences I saw; 

 yet never in a single instance did I see one of them so 

 jump a fence, nor did I ever find in the tell-tale snow 

 tracks which indicated their having done so. They paid 

 no heed whatever to the fences, so far as I could see, and 

 went through them at will ; but they always got between 

 the wires, or went under the lowest wire. The dexterity 

 with which they did this was extraordinary. When 

 alarmed they would run full speed toward a wire fence, 

 would pass through it, often hardly altering their stride, 

 and never making any marks in the snow which looked 

 as though they had crawled. Twice I saw bands thus 

 go through a wire fence, once at speed, the other time 

 when they were not alarmed. On both occasions they 

 were too far off to allow me to see exactly their mode 

 of procedure, but on examining the snow where they had 



