DEER. 
393 
feet high, and the head of a mounted man is only just visible above the tops. 
Several huntsmen armed with shot-guns form a line on the leeward side of the 
space to be hunted over, and ride through it, a little more than a gun-shot apart. 
The deer that lie in their course are started from the grass, and bound off ahead of 
the hunters, every now and then showing their backs above the tops of the grass. 
The horsemen have to shoot from the saddle, and very quickly, to secure their 
game.” Sometimes these deer are shot from canoes as they swim from island 
to island. 
Naked-Eared 
Deer. 
Mule-Deer. 
The naked-eared deer ( C . gymnotis ) from Colombia and Ecuador 
appears to be a distinct species, distinguished from the Virginian deer 
by the large flapping ears, of which the outer surface is naked, by the extreme 
narrowness of the head, and the more slender form. 
The most specialised of all the American deer as regards size and 
complexity of antlers is the mule-deer ( G . macrotis), so called on 
account of the enormous size of its ears. In this deer the antlers (as shown in a 
front view in the accompanying 
figure, and in profile in the figure 
on p. 385), when compared with 
those of the Virginian deer, have 
recovered the relative importance 
of the posterior prong, concomit¬ 
antly with a proportionate re¬ 
duction of the subbasal snag, and 
are therefore much more regularly 
forked “ At the same time,” 
writes Mr. A. G. Cameron, “the 
main strength of the beam is 
drawn into the anterior prong, 
and intermediate forms occur both 
in this and the last-named species, 
which bridge the gap between the 
extremes on either side, and leave 
no doubt as to their intimate 
relationship.” In general the 
front prong is simply forked, 
while the second divides into three 
or more snags in adult bucks ; but 
instances occur where the hinder 
prong is unbranched, while in 
some individuals of the Virginian deer the same prong is divided. The antlers 
of the second year are simply forked, in the third year the hinder prong is also 
forked; but the forking of the front prong and the development of the subbasal 
snag does not take place till the assumption of the fourth set of antlers. In the left 
antler represented in the figure on p. 385, which is from a head in the collection 
of Mr. A. G. Cameron, the length of the upper prong is 28, and that of the lower 
prong 29 inches along the curve, the basal girth being 5f inches; but in the 
HEAD OF MULE-DEER. 
