VII 



THE BLACK-TAIL DEER 



WITHOUT the aid of the naturalists, the black- 

 tail deer would be a mule-deer to the sports- 

 man, or the mule-deer a black-tail. The mule-deer is 

 more often called the black-tail by the native sports- 

 men in many places in the West, and in some locali- 

 ties that is the only name by which the mule-deer is 

 known. Colonel Dodge, in his account of hunting 

 the big game on the plains, often refers to the mule- 

 deer as the black-tail, and Roosevelt, who has had 

 as much experience as any sportsman and writer 

 with mule-deer, says it is known everywhere as black- 

 tail, and has as good a historical claim to the title as 

 its Pacific Coast kinsman, the coast or true black- 

 tail. 



The naturalists having settled the question of names 

 to their satisfaction, it behooves sportsmen who desire 

 to speak precisely to call the present species black-tail, 

 and apply the term mule-deer only to the animal de- 

 scribed in the preceding chapter. 



The black-tail, or Columbian black-tail deer, as the 

 naturalists call it, is more like the mule-deer than the 

 common red deer. In size and weight it will average 

 somewhat smaller than tlic mule-deer, and somewhat 



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