188 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



and kill, by still-hunting, a Virginia Deer. No one who 

 has not tried it can ever know the weary hours of cautious, 

 stealthy treading through woods, thickets, and over hills, 

 the intense strain on the senses and the nervous system, 

 the great concentration of intellect on the work in hand, 

 of the man who successfully copes with this denizen of the 

 shadows. No one who has not felt it can realize the 

 chagrin, the keen disappointment, that the hunter feels 

 when, after hours of stalking on the fresh trail of a buck, 

 in the new-fallen snow, he hears a whispered thump! thump! 

 away on the hill-side, and looks up just in time to see one 

 sway of the great white flag as the quarry disappears over 

 the ridge. No animal living has such eyes, such ears, and 

 such a nose as the Virginia Deer. 



In the Indian sign-language, the name of this animal is 

 indicated by a gentle wave of the uplifted hand from right 

 to left and back again, and so familiar is the motion to the 

 eye of every still-hunter, that any member of the craft, 

 though he might never have heard that there was a sign- 

 language, would know at once to what the motion referred. 



I wish it were possible to correct in the minds of all 

 sportsmen and students, at once and for all time, the many 

 erroneous notions that prevail among them concerning the 

 existence of distinct species or varieties of this Deer. 

 Recently, a number of communications were published in 

 one of the sportsmen's journals, in which the writers claimed 

 that a distinct variety of Deer exists in portions of the 

 Rocky Mountains, which they termed the "Fan-tailed 

 Deer." They based this classification on the fact that the 

 tails of certain White-tailed Deer in that region were much 

 wider than those of the White-tailed Deer in other portions 

 of the country that is, that the hair on the sides of the tail 

 was longer, and grew straight out, instead of down, as in the 

 case of the eastern variety. Some of these correspondents 

 further claimed that this Deer did not grow as large as 

 Virginianus. 



In many sections of the country we hear native hunters 

 assert that there are in their vicinity two species or varieties 



