THE TAIL. 237 



many short stubs of hairs, of ahiiost the diameter of the hairs 

 on the upper side, which they are like in color and texture. 



The black hairs cover from one eighth to one tenth of the 

 vertebrEe at its extremity, and as before stated are not shed with 

 the general coat as are the white hairs on the rest of the tail. 

 This black portion is clothed as abundantly on the lower as on 

 the upper side. Altogether the characteristics of the tail of this 

 deer are so peculiar that any one of the least observation can 

 readily distinguish it in any of its forms, at any season of the 

 year or at any age. 



I have only had in domestication six specimens, taken wild, of 

 which three were of each sex. They exhibited these several 

 forms, but the specimens killed by hunters which I have exam- 

 ined showed greater extremes than those in my own grounds, es- 

 pecially did they show the hairs more worn off on the parts most 

 exposed ; that is, I have found on the wild animals tails more 

 tapering from the upper end down to the black tuft and on the 

 oldest and largest the most so. I think the males show this 

 more than the females. 



These tails always appear to be round. Even the absence of 

 hairs on the under side fails to give them the flat appearance 

 always seen on the Virginia deer. By measurements, taken on a 

 female Mule Deer four years old in my grounds, I find the diam- 

 eter of the tail at the base, measuring from the ends of the hairs 

 in their natural position, is two and one half inches, and five 

 inches lower down I find the diameter to be one and one half 

 inches. The diameter of the tuft of black hairs corresponds 

 with that at the base of the tail. 



Another specimen in my collection (Fig. 2), from a very large 

 buck killed in the Black Hills, shows that the diameters are 

 nearly half an inch less at all the points indicated, which gives 

 the tail a much more tapering appearance than the first. The 

 length of the vertebras of this tail is eight and one half inches, 

 while the black hairs extend three and one half inches further, 

 making the tail twelve inches long. I have another specimen in 

 which the vertebrse is five and one half inches long, while it is 

 fully ten inches to the end of the black hairs. This was from a 

 young animal killed early in the season. The white hairs are 

 but little worn down, and they overlap the black hairs for more 

 than half their length, so that the black tuft is no larger than the 

 white hairs above it, but there is a gradual though slight taper all 

 the way from the base to and including the black tuft in its 



