2 Deer and Antelope of North America 



carnivora, it is only very locally that it has ever 

 been plentiful in the sense that even now the elk, 

 deer, and antelope are still plentiful over consider- 

 able tracts of country. Taking the United States 

 as a whole, the deer have always been by far the 

 most numerous of all game ; they have held their 

 own in the land better than any other kinds ; and 

 they have been the most common quarry of the 

 hunter. 



The nomenclature and exact specific relation- 

 ships of American deer and antelope offer diffi- 

 culties not only to the hunter but to the naturalist. 

 As regards the nomenclature, we share the trouble 

 encountered by all peoples of European descent 

 who have gone into strange lands. The incomers 

 are almost invariably men who are not accus- 

 tomed to scientific precision of expression. Like 

 other people, they do not like to invent names 

 if they can by any possibility make use of those 

 already in existence, and so in a large number 

 of cases they call the new birds and animals by 

 names applied to entirely different birds and 

 animals of the Old World to which, in the eyes 

 of the settlers, they bear some resemblance. In 

 South America the Spaniards, for instance, 

 christened " lion " and " tiger " the great cats 

 which are properly known as cougar and jaguar. 

 In South Africa the Dutch settlers, who came 

 from a land where all big game had long been 



