Identifier: americannaturalh02hornuoft (find matches)
Title: The American natural history : a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Hornaday, William Temple, 1854-1937
Subjects: Natural history -- North America
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: Gerstein - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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k-Tail,^is a large and handsome animal, the largest of the North Amer-ican species that are universally known as deer. It iseasily recognized by its very large ears, the two ys on eachantler, a short, white tail with a small tip of black, and awhite patch around the base of the tail. Its antlers are muchlarger than those of the white-tailed deer. Owing to theirsize and width, and their more erect poise on the head, theappearance of this animal is more stately than that of anyother round-horned American deer, save the elk. In the region it inhabits, this fine animal is known as theBlack-Tailed Deer; but that name is not appropriate toa creature which has a snow-white tail with only a tiny tipof black. It rightfully belongs to the Pacific coast species,which has a black tail, and is known by no other name thanColumbian Black-Tail. To avoid further confusion and mis-understandings, nature-lovers are urged to speak of the RockyMountain species as the Mule Deer. ^ 0-do-coile-us hem-i-onus.
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THE MULE DEER FACING EXTERMINATION 73 The winter color of the Mule Deer is a steel gray, tomatch the gray rocks and vegetation among which it lives.Its summer coat is gray-brown, and it is shed in September. The Mule Deer chooses for its home the most picturesquebad lands and foot-hills of the Rocky Mountain region,as well as the deep ravines along rivers, but it also ascendsthe mountain plateaus of its home to an elevation of 12,000feet. It is a proud-spirited, high-headed animal and a boldtraveller; and, like the mountain sheep, it is often foundwhere the scenery is w^ild and picturesque. In this respectit differs from the white-tailed deer, which prefers low groundand either brush or timber in which to hide. A large Mule Deer buck, shot by the author on SnowCreek, Montana, measured 42 inches high at the shoulders,and 62 + 6 inches in length. A large pair of antlers (in theauthors collection) have a beam length of 27M inches, with aspread of 29 inches, and have 14 points. In the Uni

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