116 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



Range, and along the headwaters of the Clear Water 

 River, a tributary of the majestic Columbia. It is also 

 found on the Big Hole River and its tributaries, in Western 

 Montana. Tlie Mule Deer is also to be found in the same 

 region, as well as on the eastern slope of the Cascade Mount- 

 ains. Caribou are plentiful in British Columbia; and in 

 Northern Washington and Idaho there is still another 

 member of this interesting family, which is a native of this 

 region, and whose existence has been almost universally 

 overlooked. It is the White-tailed Deer to which I refer. 

 This animal is undoubtedly a distinct species, as it is 

 smaller, and has a longer tail and shorter ears, than the 

 Black- tail. In color it is lighter than the other Deer, and 

 it usually inhabits lower ground. So the reader will see 

 that the Deer family is well represented on the Pacific 

 Coast, there being at least six different species. 



But by far the most common member of this family, on 

 the Pacitic Slope, is the Columbia Black-tailed Deer, so 

 named because it was first noticed by Lewis and Clarke, 

 while they were in the region of the great river of that 

 name. This animal is to be met with from Lower California 

 to Cook's Inlet, in Alaska. In size he is intermediate 

 between the Mule Deer and the Virginia Deer, for, although 

 no taller than the latter, he is more compactly built. I 

 know of a Black-tailed buck having been killed which 

 weighed two hundred and seventy pounds after having been 

 disemboweled, and there are authentic reports of still larger 

 specimens. Such animals are rarities, however, the average 

 weight of a full-grown buck being from one hundred and 

 seventy-live to two hundred and twenty-five pounds. 



In summer the animal is of a light cinnamon color, but 

 it is in the late fall and winter that it attains its most beau- 

 tiful pelage. The color of the animal at this season is a 

 beautiful steel-gray on the back and sides; the throat, 

 inside of legs, and belly being white. The tip of the nose 

 is black, but just back of it, and on the lower jaw, the color 

 is white. Between this and the universal gray there is a 

 beautiful black band encircling the muzzle. The forehead 



