30 Deer and Antelope of North America 



largest head I ever got to my own rifle had twenty- 

 eight points, symmetrically arranged, the antlers 

 being rough and very massive as well as very long. 

 The buck was an immense fellow, but no bigger 

 than other bucks I have shot which possessed 

 ordinary heads. 



The mule-deer is found from the rough country 

 which begins along the eastern edges of the great 

 plains, across the Rocky Mountains to the eastern 

 slopes of the coast ranges, and into southern Cali- 

 fornia. It extends into Canada on the north and 

 Mexico on the south. On the west it touches, 

 and here and there crosses, the boundaries of the 

 Coast blacktail. The whitetail is found in places 

 throughout its habitat from east to west and from 

 north to south. But there are great regions in 

 this territory which are peculiarly fitted for the 

 mule-deer, but in which the whitetail is never 

 found, as the habits of the two are entirely dif- 

 ferent. In the mountains of western Colorado 

 and Wyoming, for instance, the mule-deer swarms, 

 but the whole region is unfit for the whitetail, 

 which is accordingly only found in a very few 

 narrowly restricted localities. 



The mule-deer does not hold its own as well as 

 the whitetail in the presence of man, but it is by 

 no means as quickly exterminated as the wapiti. 

 The general limits of its range have not shrunk 

 materially in the century during which it has 



