The Mule- deer 35 



trained naturalists, who accept the observations 

 made in one locality as if they applied throughout 

 the range of the species. Thus in the excellent 

 account of the habits of this species in Mr. Ly- 

 deker's book on the " Deer of All Lands " it is 

 asserted that mule-deer never dwell permanently 

 in the forest, and feed almost exclusively on grass. 

 The first statement is entirely, and the second 

 mainly, true of the mule-deer of the plains from 

 the Little Missouri westward to the headwaters 

 of the Platte, the Yellowstone, and the Big Horn; 

 but there are large parts of the Rockies in which 

 neither statement applies at all. In the course of 

 several hunting trips among the densely wooded 

 mountains of western Montana, along the water- 

 shed separating the streams that flow into Clarke's 

 Fork of the Columbia from those that ultimately 

 empty into Kootenay Lake, I found the mule- 

 deer plentiful in many places where practically 

 the whole country was covered by dense for- 

 est, and where the opportunities for grazing were 

 small indeed, as w r e found to our cost in connec- 

 tion with our pack-train. In this region the mule- 

 deer lived the entire time among the timber, and 

 subsisted for the most part on browse. Occasion- 

 ally they would find an open glade and graze ; 

 but the stomachs of those killed contained not 

 grass, but blueberries and the leaves and delicate 

 tips of bushes. I was not in this country in win- 



