The bucks usually keep by themselves during the summer, in parties rarely exceeding ten. As their horns lose the velvet and the mating season draws near, the old bucks gather in bands of from six to ten.
At this time they are in perfect physical condition, and a band of them in the open forest, their antlers held proudly aloft and their glossy coats shining in the sun, presents a superb picture. They have little of the protective caution so characteristic of the white-tails, and when a shot is fired at a band they often begin a series of extraordinary “buck jumps,” bounding high in the air, facing this way and that, sometimes not taking fight until after several additional shots have been fired. These high, bounding leaps are characteristic of mule deer and are commonly made when the animals are suddenly alarmed and often when they are in full flight through brushy thickets.
After the mating season, bucks and does join in bands, sometimes of fifteen or twenty, and descend to the foothills and sometimes even to the adjacent plains. Their preference, however, is for rough and broken country, such as that of canyon-cut mountains or the deeply scored badlands of the upper Missouri River.
These deer are not good runners in the open. On several occasions, on level country in Arizona, I have ridden after and readily overtaken parties of them within a mile, their heaving flanks and open mouths showing their distress. The moment rough country was reached, however, with amazing celerity a series of mighty leaps carried them away from me over declivities impossible for a horse.
The sight of a party of these splendid deer bounding away through the aisles of a mountain forest always quickens one’s pulse and gives the finishing touch of wildness to the scene. Mule deer are characteristic animals of the beautiful open forests and forest parks of the Rocky Mountains and the high Sierras, where they may be perpetuated if given reasonable protection.
BLACK-TAILED DEER (Odocoileus columbianus and its subspecies)
In general appearance the black-tails have a close resemblance to the mule deer, but average smaller. They have the same large ears, forked tines to the antlers, and rather “stocky” body; but the brushy all-black tail distinguishes them from any other American deer. In color they have much the same shade of brown as the Virginia deer. They have the usual cycle of annual changes common to most American deer—assuming a dull coat in fall and losing their horns in winter, followed by the resumption of a brighter coat in spring and the renewal of their horns in summer.
The black-tails have one of the most restricted ranges among our deer. They are limited to the humid heavily forested belt along the Pacific coast from Juneau, Alaska, southward to the Coast range in central California. This coastal belt is characterized by superb growths of cedars, spruces, and firs in the north and by redwoods and firs in the south, uniting to make one of the most magnificent forest areas in the world. Here the deer live in the midst of rank undergrowths of gigantic ferns and other vegetation, as luxuriant in many places as that of the humid tropics.
Their home on the abruptly rising slopes of the islands in the Alaskan Archipelago is so restricted that both in summer and winter they fall an easy prey to native and white hunters. It has been reported that there has been much wasteful killing of the deer on these islands for commercial purposes. When the heavy snows of winter on the islands force the deer down to the shore, great numbers of them are also killed by wolves.
Black-tails commonly have two or three young, and this fecundity, combined with the effective protection given by the dense forest where many of them live, will aid in their perpetuation. At the same time they have not developed the mental alertness of the Virginia deer, and there is imminent need for prompt and effective action in safeguarding the deer in the Alaskan part of their range if their extermination on some of the islands is to be prevented. In this northern region the black-tails share their range with strange tribes of coastal Indians, whose huge sea-going canoes, totem poles, and artistic carvings are unique among native Americans.