COMMON AMERICAN OR VIRGINIAN DEER 



91 



j\ntlcrs of \'irginian Deer. P'rom a specimen in the British Museum. 



COMMON AMERICAN or VIRGINIAN DEER (Mazama americana). 



With the exception of the wapiti and elk, all the deer of America 

 are distinguished from those of the Old World, save the roe and milou 

 deer, by the absence of a brow tine to the antlers, which are either 

 regularly forked or spike-like, and cjuite different from those of either the 

 roe or milou deer. In the Virginian deer they are large and complex, 

 with a long sub-basal snag, and the front prong of the main fork 

 developed at the expense of the hinder, and carrying a number of snags 

 on its upper surface. Tail long. A gland-tuft on the hock, and a small 

 cylindrical white one with a black centre near the lower end of the hind 

 cannon-bone. Colour of upper parts chestnut in summer and bluish 

 gray in winter, with the under surface of the tail and the buttocks pure 

 white. Typically from Eastern North America, where the height at the 

 shoulder reaches to 3 feet i inch, but represented by numerous races 

 in other parts of the Continent, which gradually decrease in size and 

 complexity of antlers towards the south, where they extend to Peru, 

 Bolivia, and Guiana. Weight, 12 st. 7 lbs. (F. C. Selous). Commonly 

 called white-tailed deer. 



