THE MULE DEER . 
127 
1892-3-4-5 and 6 than passed during the whole 
month of October, 1902. 
“There are a lot of deer, it is true, on the north 
slope of the divide at Pagoda and Sleepy Cat 
mountains, and eastward in the Williams Fork 
country; but they are practically the remnant. 
People here say, ‘You can’t enforce a close-sea- 
son law.’” {Outdoor Life Magazine.) 
The Mule Deer reaches its largest and finest 
antler development in the Rocky Mountains, 
from Colorado to southern British Columbia. The 
few widely-scattered survivors of this species are 
found to-day in central Chihuahua and Sonora, 
Mexico; western Colorado and Wyoming, south- 
eastern Idaho, central Montana, and eastern 
British Columbia. One fact which militates 
most strongly against the perpetuation of this 
species is that states and provinces sufficiently 
wild and unsettled to afford it a home are finan- 
cially unable to maintain the large force of sala- 
ried game-wardens which alone could really pro- 
tect it from final annihilation. 
Keller, Photo. Copyright, 1900, N. Y. Zoological Society. 
MULE DEER WITH ANTLERS IN THE VELVET. 
This species ranges as far east as western Da- 
kota, and westward to the Blue Mountains of 
Oregon. Formerly it was most numerous in 
Routt County, Colorado, where about forty-five 
hundred were slaughtered as late as the winter 
of 1900. Unfortunately, on account of its pref- 
erence for open country, its ultimate extinction 
in the United States is only a question of about 
ten years; for everywhere, save in the Yellow- 
stone Park, it is being destroyed very much 
faster than it breeds. 
The Mule Deer nearly always produces two 
fawns at a birth, and sometimes three. In feed- 
ing it is much given to browsing on twigs and 
foliage, but it also grazes freely when good grass 
is available. In the Snow Creek country of 
central Montana I found that its October bill 
of fare consisted almost solely of the long-leaved 
mugwort {Artemisia tomentosa), a species of very 
pungent and spicy sage, which was eaten greedily 
to the complete exclusion of the finest grasses 
I ever saw in the West. 
In running, this deer often progresses by a 
series of stiff-legged leaps, in which it touches 
the ground lightly with its hoofs, bounds upward 
as if propelled by steel springs, and Hies forward 
for an astonishing distance. In Manitoba and a 
few other localities this remarkable gait has 
caused this animal to be called the .lumping 
Deer. Owing to the fact that it lives in a dry 
climate and rarefied atmosphere, and subsists 
on very dry foods, it is difficult to acclimatize it 
anywhere outside of its own home. East of the 
Mississippi most Mule Deer die of gastro-enteritis, 
but in the Hon. William C. Whitney’s great park 
on October Mountain, near Lenox, Mass., this 
species has actually become acclimatized. 
The Columbian Black-Tailed Deer, 1 of the 
Pacific Coast, is smaller than the typical white- 
tailed deer, and very much smaller than the 
mule deer. The outer surface of its tail is black 
all over, and constitutes the best distinguishing 
character of the species. The antlers are very 
variable. Occasionally those of old bucks ex- 
hibit the double Y on each beam which is so 
characteristic of the mule deer; but in most 
cases, the double bifurcation is wanting, and the 
antlers look very much like those of the white- 
tailed deer. In its body colors it resembles the 
latter species more closely than the mule deer. 
This species inhabits the well-watered and 
densely-shaded coniferous forests of the Pacific 
coast from the north end of Vancouver Island 
to central California. It feeds freely upon ever- 
green foliage, and I have seen a captive animal, 
in its native forest in the great, natural park at 
Vancouver, partake freely of the foliage of spruce, 
Douglass fir and juniper, in rapid succession. 
Because of some diatetic peculiarity as yet un- 
1 O-do-coil' e-us co-lum-bi-an'us. 
