THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
mule deer,” and say that it has “ much larger ears than the common 
deer ” (white -tail). 
The mule deer ranges north to Manitoba as far as Athabasca Landing, 
and there is some reason to believe that individual stragglers go right 
up the Rockies into Northern British Columbia. About 1907 a deer, 
believed to be of this species, was killed near Telegraph Creek at the 
headwaters of the Stikine, and was either a specimen of this race or the 
Columbian black-tail. To the south O. h. cattus takes its place in Mexico, 
and in the south-west along the California coast is found O. h. eremicus. 
From Oregon to Northern British Columbia the variety 0. h. columbianus 
is found. 
The main range of the mule deer is North Dakota, Texas, Colorado, 
Wyoming, Idaho, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and west to Washington. 
The exact district where the mule deer merges into the Columbian 
variety does not seem to have been determined, but mule deer which I 
have seen killed in Western Alberta seem to be somewhat intermediate 
in character. 
Anderson and his companions met with the mule deer on their journey 
up the Missouri in 1843, and after this all western travellers seem to 
have noted its common appearance. 
As settlers and hunters spread over the west this deer became a familiar 
animal and, with the pronghorn, was constantly shot to serve the daily 
menu. Being a much tamer and more generally distributed animal than 
the wapiti, the mule deer served as the principal food of all the mining 
camps, both in California and the main ranges of the Rockies, and 
thousands were annually killed for meat by the pioneers of the west. 
Mule deer were always more abundant and generally grew finer heads in 
Colorado than in any other state, and these performed annual short 
migrations in the spring and fall. Even until 1905 mule deer were still 
very abundant in Colorado. In September, 1901, Mr Thompson-Seton 
observed 750 deer in twenty-seven days. Their migration in the autumn 
is not performed, as in the case of the wapiti, in great bands, but in small 
parties or singly, and we have evidence of their tameness and abundance 
in the series of beautiful photographs taken in Colorado at this time by 
Mr Wallihan. Mr Thompson-Seton estimated their numbers in 1901 at 
200 to the square mile in favourite localities. 
Roughly the present area of the range of the mule deer is about 
2,500,000 square miles, but in this there are now great areas where the 
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