WHITE-TAILED DEER 



Antlers of Virginian White-tailed Deer. From a specimen in the British Museum. 



WHITE-TAILED DEER (Mazama [Dorcelaphus] americana). 

 (Odocoileus virginianus of American naturalists.) 



With the exception of the wapiti, all the deer of America are 

 distinguished from those of the Old World, save the elk, roe, and 

 milu deer, by the absence of a brow-tine to the antlers, which are 

 either regularly forked or spike-like, and quite different from those 

 of either the roe or milu deer. In the white-tailed deer they are 

 large and complex, with a long sub-basal snag, and the front prong 

 of the main fork developed at the expense of the hinder, and carrying 

 a number of snags on its upper surface. Tail long. A gland-tuft 

 on the hock, and a small cylindrical white one with a black centre 

 near the lower end of the hind cannon-bone. Colour of upper parts 

 chestnut in summer and bluish grey in winter, with the under surface 

 of the tail and the buttocks pure white. Typically from Eastern 

 North America, where the height at the shoulder reaches to 3 feet I 

 inch, but represented by numerous races in other parts of the continent, 

 which gradually decrease in size and complexity of antlers towards 

 the south, where they extend to Peru, Bolivia, and Guiana. Weight 

 of a specimen of the typical race shot by Mr. Selous, 1 2 st. 7 Ibs. 



