THE VIRGINIAN DEER 



(Cariaciis virginianus) 



THE Virginian or White-tailed Deer, as it is called in its own country, 

 is far the most abundant and widely-spread Deer in North America, 

 and continues to exist even in long-settled districts where any wood- 

 land remains. 



It is about the size of our own Fallow-Deer, and equally graceful 

 in form, but differs very much in colour of coat and style of antlers. 

 The general hue is reddish brown in summer and grey in winter, 

 the difference being usually very marked, though there is much 

 individual variation. The fawns are usually white-spotted in the 

 orthodox Deer fashion, but self-coloured ones, like that in the illus- 

 tration, a British Museum specimen, ' are not uncommon ; and Mr. 

 Lydekker records a case in which a doe in captivity bore a spotted 

 one and a plain one together the normal number at a birth in this 

 species being two. 



The antlers of the buck, like those of all purely American Deer, 

 are of a very different type from those of the Old World species. It 

 will be noticed, for instance, that there is no brow-tine, while the 

 style of branching is quite different, and the beam bends abruptly 

 forward in a peculiar way. The length of the horn is about two feet. 

 The typical race of this Deer inhabits the eastern side of North 

 America, from Maine southwards, but different races or local varieties 

 of it range through the Western States, down through Mexico and 

 Central America, even into Peru and Bolivia in the southern half of 

 the continent. As so often happens, the southern races are much 

 smaller than the northern or typical form of the species. 



This Deer is a woodland species as a rule, and is very shy and 

 wary ; indeed, it is owing to its cunning that it is enabled to maintain 

 itself so well in the neighbourhood of man, though it is nowadays 

 also protected as a sporting animal. When rushing off, its tail, which 

 is rather long for a Deer's, and conspicuously white for the most part, 



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