MAMMALS OF THE MEXICAN BOITNDAEY. 181 



All older male, (No. 58!)2y, U.S.N.M.)) killed August -2'.), has Uie last- 

 molars slightly more advanced, and the second milk incisor has dis- 

 appeared on the left side, the right resting on the apex of the second 

 permanent incisor. Another male, perhaps sixteen months old (No. 

 Imi^ U.S.N.M.), had perfected spike horns measuring 96 mm. in 

 length November 27, and had all of its permanent front teeth. Its 

 last molars have not risen quite up to the level of the first and sec- 

 ond molars. The first lower premolar is appearing beneath the 

 posterior milk molar. It is clear, therefore, that the full comple- 

 ment of 32 teeth is completed shortly after the hardening of its 

 first horns, leaving the milk molars to be replaced by the permanent 

 premolars in the period immediately following. The order of re- 

 placement of the milk molars is from behind forward. The perma- 

 nent dentition is probably acquired by the time the second horns have 

 started, or when the animal is a little more than two years old. Al 

 any rate, a female killed with its mother (Nos. |-2~jJ|||- and ItfIt' 

 U.S.N.M.) June 3, nearly as large as its mother and presumably 

 almost two years old, had shed all but four (three upper and one 

 lower) of its milk molars, so that it would have completed its den- 

 tition about the time its mother's next fawn should be born — about the 

 end of July, as judged by the size of the fetuses. 



Habitat and habits. — This small and exquisitely graceful deer occu- 

 pies the southwest corner of New Mexico and southern Arizona, but 

 does not range far to the northward. Three mounted specimens of this 

 deer in the U. S. National Museum were taken bj^ Mr. E. W. Nelson 

 at Blue Elver, Graham County, Arizona, November 13 and 14, 1890. 

 I never saw it in northern New Mexico or Arizona, and even in the 

 higher portions of the Gila Basin it is rare or absent. During a 

 residence of four years at Fort Yerde, central Arizona, none were 

 seen. On the night of October fi, 1884, General Crook's party reached 

 a fork'of Canyon Creek, in Tonto Basin, Arizona. The Indians who 

 met us there had killed several deer when guiding the Fort Apache 

 pack train to this camp with a cargo of grain for the animals of the 

 command. One of the skins was small and reddish instead of 

 grayish, and from an Indian named Peaches I learned that it was 

 this species and not the mule deer. On the 15th of the same month 

 we saw them alive for the first time in the canyon between Black 

 -River and Ash Creek, near the road from Fort Apache to the Gila 

 Kiver. On the Gila the whites called them fan-tails or dwarf deer. 

 Mexicans simply called them "Cuervo" (Cacalote). Three were 

 seen at Mr. Hutchinson's horse camp on the rim of Bloody Basin, 

 between forts "Verde and McDowell, April 19, 1888. In the oak 

 and juniper woods of that locality Mr. Hutchinson had killed sev- 

 eral " fan-tails " and many " black-tails " or mule deer. This is the 



