44 Deer and Antelope of North America 



this season were preying upon them practically 

 to the exclusion of everything else. We came 

 upon one large fawn which had been killed by a 

 bobcat. The gray wolves were also preying upon 

 them. A party of these wolves can sometimes 

 run down even an un wounded blacktail; I have 

 myself known of their performing this feat. Twice 

 on this very hunt we came across the carcasses 

 of blacktail which had thus been killed by wolves, 

 and one of the cowpunchers at a ranch where we 

 were staying came in and reported to us that while 

 riding among the cattle that afternoon he had seen 

 two coyotes run a young mule-deer to a stand- 

 still, and they would without doubt have killed it 

 had they not been frightened by his approach. 

 Still the wolf is very much less successful than 

 the cougar in killing these deer, and even the cou- 

 gar continually fails in his stalks. But the deer 

 were so plentiful that at this time all the cougars 

 we killed were very fat, and evidently had no 

 difficulty in getting as much venison as they 

 needed. The wolves were not as well off, and 

 now and then made forays on the young stock of 

 the ranchmen, which at this season the cougar let 

 alone, reserving his attention to them for the sum- 

 mer season when the deer has vanished. 



In the Big Horn Mountains, where I also saw 

 a good deal of the mule-deer, their habits were 

 intermediate between those of the species that 



