THE MULE-DEER 



241 



an indication of a regular habit; but a couple of years 

 later, on a moonlight night just after sunset, I heard a 

 big buck travelling down a ravine and continually bark- 

 ing, evidently as a love challenge. I have been informed 

 by some hunters that the bucks at the time of the rut 

 not infrequently thus grunt and bark; but most hunters 

 are ignorant of this habit; and it is certainly not a com- 

 mon practice. 



The species is not nearly as gregarious as the wapiti 

 or caribou. During the winter the bucks are generally 

 found singly, or in small parties by themselves, although 

 occasionally one will associate with a party of does and of 

 young deer. When in May or June for the exact time 

 varies with the locality the doe brings forth her young, 

 she retires to some lonely thicket. Sometimes one and 

 sometimes two fawns are brought forth. They lie very 

 close for the first few days. I have picked them up and 

 handled them without their making the slightest effort to 

 escape, while the mother hung about a few hundred 

 yards off. On one occasion I by accident surprised a 

 doe in the very act of giving birth to two fawns. One 

 had just been born and the other was born as the doe 

 made her first leap away. She ran off with as much 

 speed and unconcern as if nothing whatever had hap- 

 pened. I passed on immediately, lest she should be sb 

 frightened as not to come back to the fawns. It has hap- 

 pened that where I have found the newly born fawns I 

 have invariably found the doe to be entirely alone, but 

 her young of the previous year must sometimes at least 

 be in the neighborhood, for a little later I have frequently 



