NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 279 



crossing above the tail and involving its entire basal half or 

 two-thirds. The tail itself is quite slender and cylindrical on 

 the basal two-thirds; the hair there being compact and close 

 and then expanding into a dense tuft, which is entirely black" 

 (Baird, 1857). Total length from tip of nose to tip of tail 

 vertebrae, about 6 feet 6 inches. 



Formerly the eastern mule deer was found in the Plains 

 country from northern Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the 

 Dakotas, and extreme northwestern Minnesota northward 

 into southern Manitoba and westward to the foothills of the 

 Rocky Mountains, where it is believed to have intergraded 

 with the Rocky Mountain mule deer, 0. h. macrotis, which is 

 still common in the region from northern New Mexico north- 

 ward into southern British Columbia. In the Dakotas this 

 was a common species in the early days, and Bailey (1926) 

 has brought together many notes of their presence from the 

 accounts of early travelers in the region. In the seventies of 

 the last century they were more abundant than the white- 

 tailed deer on the upper Missouri, but in the succeeding decade 

 the increasing influx of settlers and hunters had greatly reduced 

 their numbers. J. S. Weiser, emoted by Bailey, reported them 

 so common in the vicinity of Valley City in 1878 "that one 

 could not travel 5 miles without seeing them," and JohnHailand 

 stated that though common at that time the last one was 

 shot in 1885 or 1886. The latter adds: "There was so much 

 venison in camp during the first years that visitors' ponies 

 were usually loaded down with it before they returned. There 

 was no sale for venison nor for skins, they were so plentiful. 

 Skins were used for mattresses; they would get damp and 

 deteriorate during summer and a new supply was provided 

 each fall for the winter's sleeping." In 1896, Seton (1909) in 

 a 15-mile ride across the Badlands of the Little Missouri, 

 counted only three where ten years before he and his companion 

 had counted 160 over the same ground. The numbers seem to 

 have declined rapidly in the early years of the present century. 

 Bailey states further that in 1912 they were reported rare in 

 the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota, but just across the 

 line in Manitoba they were more common and a number were 

 killed each year. In 1913 Jewett found them "still fairly 

 common" in the Badlands along the Little Missouri, but in 

 the Killdeer Mountains he found that all had been killed off 



