HABITS OF THE MULE DEER 75 



British Columbia. The few widely scattered survivors of 

 this species are found to-day in central Chihuahua and Sonora, 

 Mexico; western Colorado and Wyoming, southeastern Idaho, 

 western Montana, and eastern British Columbia. One fact 

 which militates most strongly against the perpetuation of 

 this species is that states and provinces sufficiently wild and 

 unsettled to afford it a home are financially unable to maintain 

 the large force of salaried game-wardens which alone could 

 really ^protect it from final annihilation. 



This species ranges as far east as western Dakota, and 

 westward to the Blue Mountains of Oregon. Formerly it 

 was most numerous in Routt County, Colorado, where about 

 forty-five hundred were slaughtered as late as the winter of 

 1900. Unfortunately, on account of its preference for open 

 country, its ultimate extinction in the United States every- 

 where outside of game preserves is only a question of a few 

 years; for everywhere, save in the Yellowstone Park, it is 

 being destroyed very much faster than it breeds. 



The Mule Deer nearly always produces two fawns at a 

 birth, and sometimes three. In feeding it is much given to 

 browsing on twigs and foliage, but it also grazes freely when 

 good grass is available. In the Snow Creek country of cen- 

 tral Montana I found that its October bill of fare consisted 

 almost solely of the long-leaved mugwort (Artemisia to- 

 mentosa), a species of very pungent and spicy sage, which was 

 eaten greedily to the complete exclusion of the finest grasses 

 I ever saw in the West. 



In running, this deer often advances by a series of stiff- 

 legged leaps, in which it touches the ground lightly with its 



