THE TAIL. 237 
many short stubs of hairs, of almost 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 ee 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 J 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 vertebre of this tail is eight and one halt 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 vertebre 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 
