The North American Cervidce. 151 



Virginia Deer {Cariacus Virginianus (Bodd.) Gray). 



The red deer is so well known that an extended description of its 

 physical characteristics seems scarcely necessary. The summer coat 

 is bright bay ; the throat and under surface of the tail being white 

 at all seasons. In the autumn, the coat becomes grayer and the 

 animal is then said to be " in the blue." There is usually a reddish 

 or brownish cast over the deer's coat, even in winter. The upper sur- 

 face of the tail is dark brown. The shape of the Virginia deer is 

 the most graceful of any of our species. The head is slim and 

 delicate, the ears fine and pointed, and the legs long and slender. 

 The conspicuous feature of this species, when frightened, is the tail, 

 which is carried high and shows the white under-surface. 



This has the widest distribution of any of our deer, extending 

 from ocean to ocean, and from about the fifty-fourth parallel of north 

 latitude south into Mexico, and, perhaps, Central America. Unlike 

 the elk and the mule-deer, it does not retreat before the advance 

 of civilization, but when driven from its home, disappears for a short 

 time only, and soon returns. To-day, there are probably not more 

 than one or two States in the Union in which wild deer do not exist, 

 and a high authority recently wrote, " It may be found to-day in 

 every State and Territory of the United States." 



There is a very wide variation in* the size of individuals of this 

 species in different and even in the same sections of country. On 

 these differences, as distinguishing characters, a number of supposed 

 varieties of C, Virginianus ( leuczirus, macrurus, Mextcanus, and 

 Coucsi) have been based, most of which appear to be of doubtful 

 validity. There are big deer and little deer, just as there are tall and 

 short men; and until some characters more tangible and constant than 

 size can be given, it is scarcely worth while to dignify small speci- 

 mens of the Virginia deer with varietal names. In the year 1874, 

 during the first expedition of the late General Custer into the Black 

 Hills of Dakota, deer were found there in great numbers, and most 

 of them were of this species. It was a common thing to kill, on the 

 same day, adult bucks, which one man could without difficulty lift 

 and put on a horse, and others, two or three times as large, which 

 required the united strength of two men to put in the same position. 



