Besides the signs visible when a deer is shot, there are those which are brought to the hunter's knowledge through his ear: a hard, sharp sound conveying the intelligence that a bone is struck (and if it is not a leg the deer will hardly run), and a dull "thud" telling that a soft part is hit. In any and every case the hunter should examine minutely the place where the game stood when it was shot at. The hair cut off by the bullet is often of great assistance in determining the location of the wound, and the torn-up needles or ground often show if the animal jumped or kicked as it was shot. Remember that the successful hunter is never in a hurry, and minutes spent in close observation will often save hours of exhausting chase.

HOOF OF BLACK-TAILED DEER. (SLIGHTLY REDUCED)

Later in the season, when rough winds have robbed deciduous bushes of their leaves, bucks generally change their day stand, abandoning quaking-aspen thickets, and settling down among windfalls and small coniferous trees, thereby offering better chances for shots at any hour of the day. Still later, during the rutting season, the biggest specimens and best fighters will occupy those roomy, open forests, where in September and early October they make their appearance only during morning and evening hours. These old over-lords at this time select the places of a wider view, apparently to see others of their kind that may pass, to fight them off their range if they are bucks, and to claim ownership of them if they are does. The white-tail buck does not keep a harem, as is done by the elk and to some extent by the black-tailed deer, but stays with a doe a few days only, generally two or three, and then looks out for adventures elsewhere, or, more probably, the doe does not care for his company after being satisfied, and avoids him. Before the close of the hunting season, where it is extended until January 1, bucks again stay in thickets as prior to the rutting season, and soon after migrate to their winter range, where they, in company with does and fawns, spend the rigorous season of the year.

Summing up, we have seven signs by which to distinguish a buck's trail from that of a doe, of which the first in the following list is a feature of the white-tailed deer solely, and of which the three last named cannot be regarded as always absolutely certain:

1.Watching from cover;
2.Drag;
3.Blazing of trees;
4.Pawing of ground;
5.Distance of tracks from center line;
6.The pointing outward of toes;
7.The lagging back with the hind legs.

THE FAN-TAILED DEER

THE existence of the fan-tailed deer, or gazelle-deer, as it is sometimes called, is denied by some who know no better, but it is generally recognized by "old timers" and men who hunt it in its present restricted habitat. That its range was formerly more extensive than now, and that even now it still exists in widely separated districts, the writer infers from a letter of Justice Douglas, late of the Supreme Court of New York, whose guide apparently shot one in Michigan, and from an article in a sportsman's periodical by Mr. Ernest McGaffey, who found it in the Black Hills. The writer found relics of them in the Bad Lands of Montana and live specimens in the Snowy Mountains of the same State. It is evidently a smaller variety of the common Virginia deer, with a markedly longer tail; however, as its track shows some decided differences, by which it can readily be distinguished, it is considered advisable to treat it separately.