NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 287 



deer, Cory (1896) states that he has killed full-grown bucks 

 that did not weigh over 110 pounds, although they average 

 larger. Apparently the recently described small deer from the 

 coast marshes of Louisiana may be considered the same and 

 is here included as a synonym. 



The exact status of the small Florida deer is not well ascer- 

 tained. It is apparently common in southern Florida and was 

 considered to be "of very general distribution" over much of 

 the peninsula in 1898 by Bangs, although "in the more thickly 

 settled and accessible parts of the State it has been much re- 

 duced in numbers. " This reduction has of late been acceler- 

 ated, because of the killing of deer on account of their being 

 hosts to ticks that spread disease. On the Gulf coast they are 

 said to be no longer found in western Florida, but in extreme 

 southwestern Alabama what may possibly be this same race 

 still exists. In this State, according to A. H. Howell (1921), 

 deer are now practically exterminated except in a few areas in 

 the northern part (presumably typical mrginianus) and in 

 "the big wooded swamps of the lower Tensaw and Mobile 

 Rivers " (presumably osceola) . Here a number are killed during 

 the open season every fall. Ttey are hunted with dogs that 

 drive the deer past the waiting hunter at some favorable 

 "stand." "The deer take readily to the water and swim 

 easily from one island to another in this great swamp; in this 

 way they are able to keep ahead of the dogs, but are often 

 shot while swimming a creek or river or when crossing an 

 opening in the timber. Deer are still found in moderate num- 

 bers in the sandhills and swamps of southern Baldwin County 

 . . . Twenty years ago or more they were common in the 

 sandhills and small swamps of Mobile County, but now ap- 

 parently all have been exterminated from that region." 

 Both these counties border the Gulf of Mexico in extreme 

 southwestern Alabama. No data are at hand concerning the 

 deer in coastal Mississippi, but it seems probable that the 

 small deer with large toothrows of south-central Louisiana 

 described as a race, mcilhennyi, are the same and are of local 

 distribution in the coastal region. 



Probably some restriction on the killing of deer in these 

 areas is desirable. 



