The Whitetail Deer. 53 



ing, rocking, or just sitting still listening to the low rustling 

 of the cottonwood branches overhead, and gazing across 

 the river. Through the still, clear, hot air, the faces of 

 the bluffs shone dazzling white ; no shadow fell from the 

 cloudless sky on the grassy slopes, or on the groves of 

 timber ; only the faraway cooing of a mourning dove broke 

 the silence. Suddenly my attention was arrested by a 

 slight splashing in the water ; glancing up from my book 

 I saw three deer, which had come out of the thick fringe 

 of bushes and young trees across the river, and were 

 strolling along the sand-bars directly opposite me. Slip- 

 ping stealthily into the house I picked up my rifle, and 

 slipped back again. One of the deer was standing motion- 

 less, broadside to me ; it was a long shot, two hundred 

 and fifty yards, but I had a rest against a pillar of the 

 verandah. I held true, and as the smoke cleared away 

 the deer lay struggling on the sands. 



As the whitetail is the most common and widely dis- 

 tributed of American game, so the Columbian blacktail 

 has the most sharply limited geographical range ; for it is 

 confined to the northwest coast, where it is by far the most 

 abundant deer. In antlers it is indistinguishable from the 

 common blacktail of the Rockies and the great plains, and 

 it has the regular blacktail gait, a succession of stiff-legged 

 bounds on all four feet at once ; but its tail is more like 

 a whitetail's in shape, though black above. As regards 

 methods of hunting, and the amount of sport yielded, it 

 stands midway between its two brethren. It lives in a 

 land of magnificent timber, where the trees tower far into 



