The Mule-deer 195 



eat. I have never known them eat hay as the 

 Virginia deer will sometimes do when very hun- 

 gry, and they rarely touch any of the alfileria, 

 burr-clover, or other of the nutritious fodder 

 plants of which cattle are here so fond. But they 

 will eat alfalfa and nibble growing grain — prob- 

 ably because they think they are doing mischief, 

 this deer being the master of his tribe in that- 

 line. 



When I first came to California in 1875, I 

 heard much talk of a huge burro (donkey) deer 

 that lived on the desert slope of the main chain 

 of the Sierra Nevada, which continues all the way 

 down through the Mexican territory of Lower 

 California. I afterward saw several and was in- 

 clined to believe them different from those on the 

 western slope. Later I became convinced that 

 it was a case of bad observation, and that abnor- 

 mally large specimens of the mule-deer are found 

 through its entire range. Though my deer-hunt- 

 ing reaches over thirty-five years, I never actually 

 weighed one until last year, 1901, when we hap- 

 pened to stop where there were scales, with a big 

 buck just killed. Without the entrails or shanks 

 it weighed one hundred and sixty pounds. The 

 fat plainly showed it had fallen off a little, and a 

 month earlier was probably ten pounds heavier. 

 He probably weighed as he stood full two hun- 

 dred pounds and probably weighed two hundred 



