THE MULE DEER. 



By Rev. Joshua Cooke ("Boone"). 



f PRESUME that it is not the design of the editor of 

 this work to have his contributors- go into minute 

 details of description of the noble animals of which he 

 ^ wishes us to write, especially of the CervidcB; the 

 handsome and remarkable volume of Judge Caton on "The 

 Antelope and Deer of America" has left nothing of that 

 kind to be done after him. I assume that it is our province 

 to give fair general descriptions of the animals, to treat of 

 their haunts and habits as we ourselves have discovered 

 them, and to narrate such incidents of region, forest life, the 

 actual hunt, as should make the reader our companion for 

 the time, and the sharer in our instruction and our i^leasure 

 as we tell the hunt in its details, and ' ' fight our battles o' er 

 again." It is one of the pleasures remaining to those who 

 have been themselves shut out, by busy life or other cause, 

 from pursuit of our nobler game animals, to read the stories 

 as told by more favored ones; while these latter, now 

 debarred from former privileges, seek a measurable renew- 

 ing of them through the medium of the pen. So, without 

 further prologue, I will enter on the part assigned me, with 

 this pleasure, that my theme is one of the finest animals of 

 the chase, or of our continent. 



Although, as I said, I do not suppose it is minutely 

 technical description that is looked for from us, yet it is 

 proper that the animal should be fairly set before the 

 reader before entering on details and incidents of its pur- 

 suit. This can not be done better than in the words of 

 Judge Caton, who has both hunted the Mule Deer in his 

 native haunts and raised him in his noble park in Illinois. 

 Judge Caton says: 



This Deer was first discovered by Lewis and Clarke, on September 18, 

 1804, in latitude 42'', on the Missouri River, who then called it "Black-tailed 



( r-y. ) 



