Black-Tailed Deer 279 



near the extremity ringed with yellowish brown, and terminating in a black 

 tip ; hinder portion of under-parts and region of base of tail, as well as 

 upper throat and chin, white ; face gray, darker on the forehead ; legs 

 dark cinnamon, without any admixture of white hairs ; tarsal and metatarsal 

 tufts only a shade lighter than the adjacent portions of the leg ; no naked 

 portion of gland visible in the elongated metatarsal tuft. In summer the 

 general colour of the upper-parts reddish yellow. Face-gland rather small. 

 Antlers of the general type of those of the mule-deer, but relatively smaller. 



The distinctive features of this species are the entirely black tail-tip, and 

 the medium length of the metatarsal gland and tuft, which are situated 

 entirely above the middle of the cannon-bone. Mr. Caton states that the 

 gland is intermediate between that of the mule-deer and that of the Virgin- 

 ian, and figures a specimen in which the naked portion is about an inch and 

 a half in length. But in a pair of this species in captivity at Woburn 

 Abbey in the summer of 1897, where they survived only a very short time, 

 the gland and its tuft were longer, and much more like those of the mule-deer. 



Distribution. — Western North America, from British Columbia, through 

 Washington and Oregon west of the Cascade Mountains, to California ; the 

 typical locality being the mouth of the Columbia River, in Washington, 

 where it was discovered by Lewis and Clarke in 1805. It also occurs in 

 the coast districts of Vancouver Island. Mr. Caton observes that " the 

 most extraordinary fact in connection with this deer is the extremely 

 narrow limits of its range, which is within a narrow belt along the Pacific 

 coast of America, in the temperate zone. In many parts of this district it 

 is the most abundant deer to be met with. Why it has never wandered 

 beyond these bounds, it is hard to say. It has never even reached the base 

 of the Rocky Mountains, except possibly in the extreme northern part of its 

 range. The mountain barriers could not restrain it ; for it ranges high up 

 on the Sierra Nevada, and is found on the eastern slope of that range. If 

 the deserts at the south would deter it from an eastern migration, the 

 valleys of the streams heading in the Rocky Mountains, and emptying into 

 the Columbia River, invited it to follow their banks, and would have led 

 it to the summit of the range, and to practicable passes." A map of the 

 distribution of this species in British Columbia is given in Mr. J. 

 Turner-Turner's Three Tears' Hunting and Trapping in America and the 

 Great North-West. 



