260 



American Deer 



hairs of the upper side of tail are dark-red brown at base and cinnamon at 

 tips ; under side of the tail white, the hairs very long ; eyelashes jet black. 

 An old male, in worn midsummer coat, has lost the banding of the hairs 

 and is a bright russet cinnamon above, which extends to the front of the 

 eyes. The muzzle is very sparsely haired, and of a grizzled hair-brown 

 colour, with a black spot behind each nostril. The tail is broadly edged 

 with black at the base and black above at the tip. An old male from 

 Blitches Ferry, Citrus County, Florida, in fresh autumnal pelage, is very 

 dark above, the lower dark band of the hairs extending to their base and 



Fig. 70. — Florida Deer. From a photograph by Mr. Rowland Ward. 



imparting to the whole upper-parts a rich dark-brown colour, variegated 

 by the yellow bands of some of the hairs ; tail not edged with black, but 

 like that of the type. A half-grown female has the hairs of the back 

 unhanded and is clay-colour above, beautifully marked with small irregular 

 white spots." The limbs are longer, the antlers longer, the teeth larger, 

 and the muzzle more elongated than in the next race. 



Distribution. — Peninsula of Florida. Mr. Bangs writes that the Florida 

 deer is of very general distribution over the whole of peninsular Florida, 

 but in the more thickly settled and accessible parts of the State it has been 

 much reduced in numbers of late. Its northern range is unknown to me, 

 and I am therefore unable to state whether or not it overlaps the range of 

 M. americana typica. 



