“He was a good old fellow, and promised to keep dark; but it was necessary to make all right with ‘Squire Robbins.’ So the affair soon got wind, and my torch-hunt became, for a time, the standing joke of the settlement.”
Chapter Twenty Four.
Deer Hunt in a “Dug-Out.”
As we were now approaching the regions where the common fallow deer ceased to be met with, and where its place is supplied by two other species, these last became the subject of our talk. The species referred to are the “black-tails,” and “long-tails” (Cervus macrotis and leucurus).
Ike and Redwood were well acquainted with both kinds, as they had often trapped beaver in the countries where these deer are found; and they gave us a very good account of the habits of these animals, which showed that both species were in many respects similar to the Cervus Virginianus. Their form, however, as well as their size, colour, and markings, leave no doubt of their being specifically distinct not only from the latter, but from each other. Indeed, there are two varieties of the black-tails, differing in some respects, although both have the dark hair upon the tail, and the long ears, which so much distinguish them from other deer. The great length of their ears gives to their heads something of a “mulish” look—hence they are often known among the trappers by the name of “mule deer.” Ike and Redwood spoke of them by this name, although they also knew them as “black-tails,” and this last is the designation most generally used. They receive it on account of the colour of the hair upon the upper side of their tail-tips, which is of a jetty blackness, and is very full and conspicuous.
The two species have been often confounded with each other, though in many respects they are totally unlike. The black-tails are larger, their legs shorter and their bodies more “chunky,” and altogether of stouter build. In running, they bound with all their feet raised at once; while those of the long-tailed species run more like the common fallow deer—by trotting a few steps, then giving a bound, and trotting as before.
The ears of the black-tails stand up full half the height of their antlers, and their hair, of a reddish-brown colour, is coarser than the hair of the Cervus Virginianus, and more like the coat of the elk (Cervus Canadensis). Their hoofs, too, are shorter and wider, and in this respect there is also a similarity to the elk. The flesh of the black-tails is inferior to that of the fallow deer, while the long-tailed kind produces a venison very similar to the latter.
Both species inhabit woodlands occasionally, but their favourite habitat is the prairie, or that species of undulating country where prairie and forest alternate, forming a succession of groves and openings. Both are found only in the western half of the continent—that is, in the wild regions extending from the Mississippi to the Pacific. In longitude, as far east as the Mississippi, they are rarely seen; but as you travel westward, either approaching the Rocky Mountains, or beyond these to the shores of the Pacific, they are the common deer of the country. The black-tailed kind is more southern in its range. It is found in the Californias, and the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, as far south as Texas; while to the north it is met with in Oregon, and on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, as high as the fifty-fourth parallel. The long-tailed species is the most common deer of Oregon and the Columbia River, and its range also extends east of the Rocky Mountains, though not so far as the longitude of the Mississippi.