BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 421 
_ country, nearly as high up as they could climb, at the beginning 
of December, with snow a foot deep and the thermometer 10° 
below zero. There is no deer in the country, I fancy, whose 
antlers are subject to such great variation as those of C. 
macrotis, The pair figured on p. 419 is typical, although 
distinctly above the average in size (25}-in. span) ; another 
pair (obtained by Mr. H. A. James in Colorado) had 4r-in. 
span, but the abnormal head figured on p. 420 is that of a 
mule deer, and it has no fewer than 59 points in place 
of the ordinary 1o points. This stag was killed in British 
Columbia. I have also seen another pair, old and thick 
and covered with well-marked pearls, with no tines at all 
except at the top. The average weight of a male mule deer 
is about 200 lbs., though they sometimes run much larger, 
individuals having been killed weighing as much as 250 and 
Ibs. 
_ Some idea of the number of these deer in British Columbia 
may be gathered from the fact that in one district I have had 
a chance of killing seventeen separate stags in an hour’s still 
hunt, whilst one settler in the Similkameen country fed his 
hogs on deer-meat through a whole winter. 
(6) THe Wuirte-Tait (C. virginianus) 
Of the White-tail or Virginian deer I have very little to say. 
' Every quality which a deer ought not to possess from a sporting 
_ point of view this exasperating little beast possesses in the 
_ most highly developed form. He lives very often in close 
4 proximity to men, and seems to have caught some of their 
_ cunning. His habitat is from the Atlantic to the Pacific, his 
_ haunts are in river bottoms, in choking, blinding brush, and his 
_ habits are beastly. No one need ever expect to s¢a/k a white-tail. 
| If you want to get one, you must crawl about in places where 
_ the big boughs swing back and lash you across the eyes, where 
__ the rampikes catch in your clothes or rise up under your feet and 
| trip you more cleverly than a professional wrestler, where hidden 
