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Show IQOO] ANIMAL LIFE 59 considered, has been of most service to man is the deer, of which the most significant is the Virginia or white- tailed deer, which in some of its eight or more sub- species and varieties inhabits nearly all of the warm temperate sub- region. \ It was the first deer discovered by the early settlers; and to them as well as to the Indians it was a staple source of food and clothing. \ It is the most adaptable and the most abundant American deer, and will undoubtedly survive all other members of its family. ^ Essentially a lover of the forest, it avoids the arid plains and high mountains of the northwest. A near relative of the white- tail is theWile- deer, sometimes called the black- tailed deer, which inhabits the Bad Lands, and the foot- hills of the Rocky Mountains. This species bids fair to be exterminated in a few years owing to indiscriminate slaughter at all seasons. 1 Of all the larger game animals, excepting only the bison, the American elk ' or wapiti ( Cervus canadensis) has come the nearest to extermination. \ Originally the species ranged through the Adirondack and Alleghany mountains northward into Canada, from the Great Lakes to Vancouver, and through the Rocky Mountain region from Canada to Mexico. In the eighteenth century elk were still plentiful in the AUeghanies, and one was killed in central 1 The name black- tailed deer should be restricted to the Columbia black- tail of the Pacific coast, a variety of which, the Sitka deer, extends northward into Alaska. |
