BARBOUR AND ALLEN — WHITE-TAILED DEER 
67 
Thanks are due the U. S. National Museum and the Biological 
Survey for the loan of skins and skulls to supplement the few in the 
Museum representing typical virginianus; also to Maj. Allan Brooks for 
additional notes and sketches from Florida. 
The material now before us, though still inadequate, embraces a 
fairly considerable series of skulls from eastern North America, together 
with skins representing winter and summer pelages of both sexes. 
A study of these specimens seems to indicate that occasionally deer may 
attain as large a size in northern and east-central Florida as in Virginia 
or Maine and that there is no natural discontinuity in the general 
distribution of the species from north to south on the mainland. The 
northernmost deer have been considered as representing a large sub- 
species with longer tooth rows and bigger antlers, but in dimensions 
adult Maine skulls can be matched by those from Palm Beach, Florida. 
It is further apparent that the northern race borealis (type locality 
Bucksport, Maine) is at best a poorly marked subspecies characterized 
perhaps by its more widely spreading antlers, much longer winter coat, 
and slightly brighter color in summer. The deer of the extreme 
southern tip of Florida on the other hand is very small indeed, with a 
small skull and small delicate antlers, yet with a tooth row very little 
reduced in absolute size from that found in typical virginianus. To 
this we propose to restrict the name osceola, considering the type, and 
other specimens from Citrus County, to be extreme intergrades, and 
standing really nearer to true virginianus than to the small deer from 
the tip of the peninsula. Finally, we are describing as a very distinct 
geographic race the small pallid deer with reduced tooth row that 
inhabits the southernmost keys of Florida. These four races of the 
eastern United States may be characterized as follows: 
Odocoileus virginianus virginianus (Zimmermann) 
VIRGINIA DEER 
Dama virginiana Zimm., Specimen Zoologicae Geographicae, p. 351, 1777. 
Type . — Based on Pennant's Synopsis, 1771, p. 51, pi. 9, fig. 2 (antlers). 
Type locality . — None specified beyond “America,” though assumed to be 
Virginia; but the references are to Lawson's and Catesby's wmrks on Carolina. 
Diagnosis . — ^Adults nearly or quite equalling in size the race borealis. Color 
of summer and winter pelages markedly different; in summer the coat is bright, 
nearly uniform ochraceous buff on dorsal surfaces of neck, body and legs; in the 
winter pelage the hairs of the back are black-tipped with a narrow subterminal 
band of pale ochraceous giving a much darker, ticked appearance. Upper cheek 
teeth 73-81 mm. 
