72 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
this form extends northward on the Gulf Coast, intergrading with true 
in the region of Citrus County and southeastward. Specimens from the type 
locality would therefore be intergrades, more nearly approaching virginianus. 
In the six adult males from Chokoloskee, the finest head (pL 5, fig. 5) has 
antlers with the beam only 375 mm. long on the outer curve, basal tines 23 mm. 
long (570 and 85 in a head from southern Maryland), and two additional tines on 
each beam. Another old animal has two very small points (one broken off) on 
the right beam, and none on the left. Both beams are thick, with heavy burring 
at base and directed nearly straight back. The other heads all show a very small 
delicate beam with basal tines small or in some cases absent entirely, and with 
at most two short tines additional (pi. 5, figs. 6, 7). Two heads are asymmetrical : 
one has a simple beam on the right side without tines, while that of the left side 
has two small prongs; the other head has no basal tines, but two points on the 
right and one on the left side. 
The type of osceola is peculiar in having the ascending arm of the intermaxillary 
widely in contact with the outer tip of the nasal on each side. Almost always, 
whether in specimens from Florida or from farther north, these two bones are 
separated by an intervening strip of the maxillary, varying in width from 1 to 18 
millimeters, so that the condition described is unquestionably abnormal. It is 
certainly not a character of any systematic importance as it was originally sup- 
posed to be. 
Unfortunately no skins from extreme southern Florida are available, and since 
those from the type locality are quite as well referable to virginianus, it may be 
said that the color characters of this race in its extreme form are still imperfectly 
known. Hunters at Key West assure us that all the mainland deer undergo a 
seasonal change similar to that of the deer farther north. 
We have seen no specimens from the region between Chokoloskee and Palm 
Beach, a distance of some 125 miles. The large deer of the latter region must be 
referred to typical virginianus. It may be assumed that the range of osceola 
is along the Gulf Coast to the western tip of Florida, avoiding the Everglades to 
the east and southeast, where no deer occur, a range similar to that of several 
other geographic forms. 
In general the deer of east Florida are diminishing with alarming rapidity. 
The open country with scattered “hammocks” and almost invariably with myrtle 
or bay “heads” centering the hundreds of “prairie ponds” makes the deer the 
hunter^s easy victim. The Florida deer are very strictly nocturnal, never moving 
about in daytime. They are hunted with slow-trailing dogs which do not give 
tongue, the hunter usually tying the dog to his belt. When a fresh track is 
picked out the dog simply leads its master to the thicket or “head” where the deer 
has chosen to spend the day. If the spot be a small palmetto thicket in the piney 
woods the deer is flushed at a few feet range and killed with buck-shot; if it has 
evidently “laid up” in a larger hammock or head the hunter puts in the dog on 
one side and hurries to the other side of the hammock, or if a group are hunting 
watchers are posted and the dog is loosed to drive out the deer. In cases where 
the deer escapes it will usually run an almost incredible distance and no further 
attempt is made to start it again. Until, however, the hunted deer is actually 
found by the dog, it lies perfectly still and I (Barbour) have often passed and 
repassed within ten feet of deer which were afterward started with a dog but which 
