Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V THE BLACK-TAIL DEER AR different from the low-scudding, A brush-loving white-tail, is the blacktail deer, the deer of the ravines and the rocky uplands. In general shape and form, both are much alike; but the black-tail is the larger of the two, with heavier antlers, of which the prongs start from one another, as if each of the tines of a two-pronged pitchfork had bifurcated; and in some cases it looks as if the process had been again repeated. The tail, instead of being broad and bushy as a squirrel's, spreading from the base, and pure white to the tip, is round and close haired, with the end black, though the rest is white. If an ordinary deer is running, its flaunting flag is almost its most conspicuous part; but no one would notice the tail of a black-tail deer. All deer vary greatly in size; and a small black-tail buck will be surpassed in bulk by many white-tails; but the latter never reaches the weight and height sometimes attained by the former. The same holds true of the antlers borne by the two animals; on the average those of the black-tail are the heavier, and exceptionally large antlers of this species are larger than any of the whitetail. Bucks of both kinds very often have, when full-grown, more than the normal number of ten points; sometimes these many-pronged antlers will be merely deformities, while in other instances the points are more symmetrical, and add greatly to the beauty and grandeur of the head. The venison of the black-tail is said to be inferior in quality to that of the whitetail; but I have never been able to detect much difference, though, perhaps, on the whole, the latter is slightly better. The gaits of the two animals are widely different. The white-tail runs at a rolling gallop, striking the...