Introductory 5 



and the different forms of blacktail, though much 

 less, is also clearly marked. But when we come 

 to consider the blacktail among themselves, we find 

 two very distinct types which yet show a certain 

 tendency to intergrade; and with the whitetail 

 very wide differences exist, even in the United 

 States, both individually among the deer of cer- 

 tain localities, and also as between all the deer 

 of one locality when compared with all the deer of 

 another. Our present knowledge of the various 

 forms hardly justifies us in dogmatizing as to 

 their exact relative worth, and even if our knowl- 

 edge was more complete, naturalists are as yet 

 wholly at variance as to the laws which should 

 govern specific nomenclature. However, the 

 hunter, the mere field naturalist, and the lover 

 of outdoor life, are only secondarily interested in 

 the niceness of these distinctions, and it is for 

 them that this volume is written. Accordingly, I 

 shall make no effort to determine the number of 

 different but closely allied forms of smaller deer 

 which are found in North Temperate America. 



Disregarding the minor differences, there are 

 in North America in addition to the so-called 

 antelope, six wholly distinct kinds of deer: the 

 moose, caribou, wapiti, whitetail, and the two 

 blacktails. 



The moose in its various forms reaches from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific, through the cold bo- 



