CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 9. RUM IN A N TI A. 



567 



THE MULE DEER. 



more beautiful than this animal, whether grazing at its ease, or flying in fear amid its native 

 wilds. Its food varies with the season : in winter it consists of the buds of various shrubs ; in 

 spring and summer of tender grasses. It sometimes tastes the young wheat, oats, field-peas and 

 Indian corn of the border plantations, as well as huckleberries, blackberries, and the like. The 

 young are produced in May. These animals are naturally gregarious, and are found in immense 

 herds on the western prairies, the males, however, being apart, except at the season of intercourse. 

 At this time the bucks have fearful battles, and sometimes their horns become interlocked and 

 both perish. In general these animals are silent, though the males sometimes utter a snort or 

 shrill whistle, and the fawns have a faint and touching bleat. The does also bleat when wounded, 

 like a calf in distress. They take to the water freely and swim with considerable speed. For- 

 merly this species was common over the whole country; at the present time it is rare in New 

 England, except in particular localities. In the Alleghany Mountains and their slopes, from 

 Northern New York even to Georgia, it is still common. It is also found in all the wooded parts 

 of the Southern States. In Texas and Mexico it is abundant. It exists sparingly in Upper Can- 

 ada, and is sometimes, though rarely, met with in Oregon and California. Various modes of hunt- 

 ing it by both whites and Indians are adopted, and it is no doubt everywhere rapidly diminishing. 

 The Mule Deer, C. macrotis, is between the common deer and the American elk in size. Its 

 horns are round and twice forked; the body above is brownish-gray; the tail ash-color above, black 

 , near the tip ; belly grayish-white ; hair coarse like that of the elk ; the ears long, giving name to the 

 species from their resemblance to those of the mule. It seeks the remote, solitary wilds, far from 

 human settlements, and appears to be mostly confined to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mount- 

 ains, from latitude 54° north to 30° south. It chooses for its haunts rocky hills covered with firs. 

 The Black-Tailed Deer, C. Eichardsonii, or C. Lewisii, is a fine species, a trifle, larger than 



