Habits. 



394 UNGULATES. 



opposite one the upper prong measures 29 and the lower 27 inches. The extreme 

 span of these antlers is 32 inches. In another head in the same collection the 

 total length of the antlers is 32 inches, with an extreme span of 37 inches. The 

 right antler of this head has an additional tine depending from just below the 

 main fork — an aberration not unfrequently found in the Virginian deer, where it 

 may occur on both sides. 



In height the mule-deer is fully equal to the Virginian deer, but it is a more 

 stoutly built and much less graceful animal, with proportionately shorter limbs, 

 while the ears are nearly double the dimensions of those of the latter. The tail is 

 short, and quite unlike that of any other deer, being cylindrical, naked below, and 

 covered above with short white hairs, terminating in a long brush of black ones. 

 In summer the coat of the mule-deer is very thin and sparse, and generally of a 

 reddish colour, with a large white patch on the buttocks ; but in winter the general 

 colour is steel-grey, the individual hairs being tipped with black. There is much 

 more white on the face than in the Virginian deer. In a variety from California 

 the colour of the pelage is more decidedly red, and there is a black line running 

 along the middle of the upper surface of the tail. 



Mr. Grinnell states that the mule-deer " is found throughout the 

 greater part of the Missouri River district, and thence westward on 

 the plains, in the Rocky Mountains, and in the Sierra Nevada. It is an inhabitant 

 of rough, broken country, and on the plains is usually only to be found about high 

 buttes, in the bad-lands, or where the country is diversified with rocky ridges, 

 dotted here and there with scattered pines or junipers. Its favourite resorts are 

 the coulees, gulches, and canons which so often break up the high table-lands of 

 the central plateau of the continent ; but it is as often to be found among the green 

 valleys high up on the mountain-sides, or, in summer, among the low trees that 

 grow just below the snow-line. It is to such localities as the last-named that the 

 bucks resort during the summer when they are growing their antlers, and when 

 their thin coat of hair affords them little or no protection against the flies." 



It appears that the habitat of this deer has not been very much restricted by 

 advancing civilisation, as it is much less alarmed by the invasion of its haunts 

 than is the wapiti. Instead of running in the even manner of the Virginian deer, 

 mule-deer progress by a series of bounds, all their feet leaving the ground simul- 

 taneously. For a short distance their pace is rapid, but it soon slackens. As in 

 the case of the Virginian deer, the number of fawns produced at a birth is nearly 

 always two. These are born at the end of May or beginning of June, and retain 

 their spots till September. The pairing-season is in September and October. 



By the hunters in Colorado this deer is commonly spoken of as the black-tail, 

 although that name properly belongs to C. Columbian us. 

 Black-Tailed The Columbian black-tailed deer (C. columbianus) is a species 



Deer. with a very restricted distribution, being apparently confined to the 

 mountain-ranges bordering the Pacific in the neighbourhood of the Columbia River, 

 and unknown to the eastwards of the Sierra Nevada. This deer is rather smaller 

 than the mule-deer, with relatively smaller ears, but nearly similar antlers. The 

 comparatively short cylindrical tail is black throughout, except for a short strip of 

 about one-fourth the circumference running along the under surface. The general 



