G2 MAMMALOGY. 



Aud. and Bach. Quad, of N. A. Plates LXXXI, CXXXVI. 



This species, perhaps the most interesting of all the quadrupeds of 

 North America, appears to extend its range throughout the entire 

 temperate regions of North America. Though now comparatively 

 rare in the more thickly populated portions of the United States, it is 

 of frequent occurrence wherever the primitive forest affords it the 

 necessary protection, and is highly valuable and important as food to 

 the pioneer settler, or to the traveller. 



In Oregon, this species is mentioned by the naturalists of the Ex- 

 pedition as having been frequently seen ; and we find no circumstances 

 tending to excite a suspicion that there is any difierence specifically, 

 between the animals of the western and the eastern shores of the con- 

 tinent. 



Mr. Peale's remarks are as follows : 



"Numbers of deer were seen and killed at different times, by the 

 members of the Expedition, while in Oregon. They were found most 

 numerous near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, where their range is up 

 to the fiftieth degree of latitude, and probably much further north. 

 At the Umpqua River, in latitude 43°, they give place to the black- 

 tailed deer [Cervus lewisii), our preceding species, which occupies the 

 country south of that parallel, to the almost entire exclusion of the 

 present animal. 



" We believe that the same species of deer inhabits all the timbered 

 or partially timbered country, between the coasts of the Atlantic and 

 Pacific Oceans. They vary in size, as all the animals of this genus 

 do, in different feeding-grounds, but they are specifically the same. 

 The names of animals, unless they have some peculiarities of voice, 

 vary among different tribes of Indians, as among white people ; but it 

 is curious that the ' sign' for this species is everywhere the same, and 

 equally understood by the Indians of Maine, Florida, and Oregon. It 

 is founded on one of its characteristic actions. When alarmed, this 

 animal always erects its tail, which, being white beneath, is a conspi- 

 cuous object ; and when running, the tail is still kept erect and 

 wagged from side to side. Hence, the sign made by all the Indians 

 who cannot express themselves by words, is to raise the finger or 

 hand to a perpendicular position, and imitating the wagging motion 

 alluded to, — a coincidence observed in Maine and Florida on the east, 

 and on the coast of the Pacific Ocean on the west." 



