128 
ORDERS OF MAMMALS— HOOFED ANIMALS 
known, the Columbian Black-Tailed Deer can- 
not live on the Atlantic coast. After persistent 
efforts, with at least fifteen specimens drawn 
from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, 
and the loss of all through gastro-enteritis, the 
New York Zoological Society has abandoned its 
attempt to transplant the species. 
In Alaska, this species dwindles still lower, 
into the Sitka Deer , 1 in stature and antlers 
it freely risks its life in the thin fringes of cotton- 
wood timber, quaking-asp and willow brush that 
border the banks of small rivers and large creeks. 
Unlike the elk and mule deer, the White-Tail is a 
great skulker. When hiding, it crouches and 
carries its head low, and by clinging persistently 
to the friendly cover of brush or timber, saves 
itself under circumstances that, would be fatal 
to any high-headed, open-ground species. 
Painted by Carl Rungius. 
WHITE-TAILED DEER. 
even smaller than the Florida white-tail. It is 
very abundant on Admiralty Island, but as late 
as 1901 was being slaughtered in great numbers. 
The Virginia Deer, or White-Tailed Deer , 2 
was the first member of the Deer Family met by 
the early settlers of America when they went 
hunting along the Atlantic coast. It will also 
be the last of the large hoofed animals of North 
America to become extinct. It is a forest animal, 
but in many portions of the Great Plains region 
1 O-do-coil' e-us sit-ken' sis. 
2 Odocoileus vir-gin-i-an'us. 
The White-Tailed Deer derives its name from 
its very long, bushy, wedge-shaped tail, which is 
snowy-white underneath, and also on the edges. 
When alarmed and running away, this white 
brush is held stiffly aloft, and with every stride 
of the bearer, it sways from side to side, in a start- 
ling and highly conspicuous manner. While the 
peculiar mixed gray color of the pelage makes 
it difficult to see this animal in brushy surround- 
ings, the moment the creature starts to run, its 
white flag waves as if purposely inviting bullets, 
and in total defiance of all the laws of “ protective 
