2 3 



AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



erally good account of the habits of this species in Mr. 

 Lydeker's book on the " Deer of All Lands " it is asserted 

 that mule-deer never dwell permanently in the forest, and 

 feed almost exclusively on grass. The first statement is 

 entirely, the second only partly, true of the mule-deer of 

 the plains from the Little Missouri westward to the head- 

 waters of the Platte, the Yellowstone, and the Big Horn; 

 but there are large parts of the Rockies in which neither 

 statement applies at all. In the course of several hunt- 

 ing trips among the densely wooded mountains of western 

 Montana, along the water-shed separating the streams 

 that flow into Clarke's Fork of the Columbia from those 

 that ultimately empty into Kootenay Lake, I found the 

 mule-deer plentiful in many places where practically the 

 whole country was covered by dense forest, and where 

 the opportunities for grazing were small indeed, as we 

 found to our cost in connection with our pack-train. In 

 this region the mule-deer lived the entire time among 

 the timber, and subsisted for the most part on browse. 

 Occasionally they would find an open glade and graze; 

 but the stomachs of those killed contained not grass, but 

 blueberries and the leaves and delicate tips of bushes. I 

 was not in this country in winter, but it was evident that 

 even at that season the deer must spend their time in the 

 thick timber. There was no chance for them to go above 

 the timber line, because the mountains were densely 

 wooded to their summits, and the white goats of the local- 

 ity also lived permanently in the timber. 1 It was far 



1 1 call particular attention to this fact concerning the white goat, as certain 

 recent writers, including Mr. Madison Grant, have erroneously denied it. 



