American Deer 



hairs on the forehead, darker in general tint than the hair of the face. 

 Outer side of ear mostly gray, but a large white spot at the base ; upper 

 surface of tail tawny like back ; under surface of lower jaw, throat, under- 

 parts, upper half of inner surface of limbs, and under surface and tip of tail 

 white; rest of limbs nearly like the back. In winter the general colour 

 speckled brownish gray (" pepper-and-salt.") 



Mr. True is perfectly correct in regarding this deer as allied to the 

 Virginian deer, and having no affinity with the brockets. And since it comes 

 from the same region as M. americana ncmoralis, with which it agrees in the 

 presence of a small metatarsal gland, and apparently in the general colora- 

 tion, the suspicion naturally arises that it is not separable from that sub- 

 species. It is known that the Virginian deer has spike-like horns in the 

 first year, which in rare instances may persist till the second year, and 

 those of the present form might be an arrested development. But the 

 skull, of which Mr. True has sent me an adult example, is quite different 

 from that of all forms of the common American Deer. As clavatus is 

 preoccupied by Hamilton Smith's Cervus clavatus (see p. 249), which is a 

 synonym of M. americana, I propose the name of Mazama truei. 



Distribution. — South Mexico to Costa Rica. 



3. Crooke's Black-tailed Deer — Mazama crookei 



Dorce/aphus crooki, Mearns, Proc. U. S. Mus. vol. xx. p. 468 (1897). 



Characters. — This form, to which specific rank is only provisionally 

 allowed here, was founded on a female specimen stated to present characters 

 intermediate between the western race of M. a?nericana and the mule-deer. 

 The original description is as follows : — In the summer pelage. Colour 

 reddish fawn, darker from black annulations on the back, lightening to 

 grayish cinnamon on the sides, and grayish drab on the neck. The legs 

 are cream-bufF, except where new clay-coloured hair is coming in on the 

 anterior border, the limbs being almost the last part to receive the summer 

 coating. The colouring of the head is very similar to that of the mule- 

 deer in corresponding pelage. It has the horseshoe, or arrow mark on the 

 forehead, and other dark markings of the head to correspond; and the ears 

 are relatively almost or quite as large, and as scantily [sic] coated with hair. 

 The bushy hair around the metatarsal gland, which agrees in size and 



