THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
their horns, will, however, repair day after day to the same couch until it 
is worn deep into a hollow on the hillside of a sheltered wood. I have seen 
places not twenty yards wide which an old caribou stag has frequented 
regularly for a whole season. Day after day he retires to the same spot almost 
to the minute to ruminate and to doze, and the whole place is beaten up 
until the fallen wood is so soft that it makes comfortable beds. The mule 
deer also makes beds which soon become well worn lying spots, and day 
after day the animal will retire to the same place until its abode of rest 
is worn sometimes a foot or two deep in the dry ground. 
The mule deer has a somewhat peculiar gait. It walks and trots like 
other deer, but when suddenly alarmed it bounds away with all four feet 
together, and a bouncing motion. Hence its name of “ jumping deer ” 
or “ bounding black -tail.” When first observed by the hunter this deer 
stands steadily “ at gaze ” and often in the shadow of a bush. Here, if the 
hunter continues to advance, it will keep perfectly still, trusting that it 
may be mistaken for some tree stump or other natural object and that 
the man will move on and pass by. This is a common habit of all deer 
and in no instance is it more regular than in the animal under notice. 
If the observer stops, the deer still remains rigid, but if the former again 
makes the smallest movement away goes the animal in “ pronking ” 
leaps for a hundred yards or so and then suddenly halts with its great 
ears cocked to take a final view before vanishing. This last halt is often 
the hunter’s opportunity, and many a fine buck has paid the last penalty 
as the result of his curiosity. The mule deer can for a short distance attain 
a certain degree of speed, for after its first bouncing flight it settles down 
into a somewhat laboured gallop. Yet in no sense has this animal the 
endurance, the grace, or the woodcraft of the white -tail, which easily 
defeats all other deer in sinuous movement, cunning in hiding, and skill in 
passing through thick timber. The mule deer’s favourite haunt is a sloping 
hillside, only moderately afforested with stunted pines and partial cover, 
and generally in some dry belt where grass and even sage brush is patchy. 
If driven into thick cover such as a white -tail loves, and can make use of, 
it seems to lose its head and will stand at gaze in the hope that its pursuer 
will pass, or it will run in narrow circles and soon return to more open 
ground. 
Though occasionally seen on the same ground, the white -tail is the deer 
of the river -bottoms and willow brakes, and in these narrow limits it 
finds its security and its food, whilst the mule deer loves the broken 
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