The deer were preyed on by many foes. Sportsmen and hide-hunters had been busy during the fall migrations, and the ranchmen of the neighborhood were shooting them occasionally for food, even when we were out there. The cougars at this season were preying upon them practically to the exclusion of everything else. We came upon one large fawn which had been killed by a bobcat. The gray wolves were also preying upon them. A party of these wolves can sometimes run down even an unwounded blacktail; I have myself known of their performing this feat. Twice on this very hunt we came across the carcasses of blacktail which had thus been killed by wolves, and one of the cow-punchers at a ranch where we were staying came in and reported to us that while riding among the cattle that afternoon he had seen two coyotes run a young mule-deer to a standstill, and they would without doubt have killed it had they not been frightened by his approach. Still the wolf is very much less successful than the cougar in killing these deer, and even the cougar continually fails in his stalks. But the deer were so plentiful that at this time all the cougars we killed were very fat, and evidently had no difficulty in getting as much venison as they needed. The wolves were not as well off, and now and then made forays on the young stock of the ranchmen, which at this season the cougar let alone, reserving his attention to them for the summer season when the deer had vanished. In the Big Horn Mountains, where I also saw a good deal of the mule-deer, their habits were intermediate between those of the species that dwell on the plains and those that dwell in the densely timbered regions of the Rockies farther to the northwest. In the summer time they lived high up on the plateaus of the Big Horn, sometimes feeding in the open glades and sometimes in the pine forests. In the fall they browsed on certain of the bushes almost exclusively. In winter they came down into the low country. South of the Yellowstone Park, where the wapiti swarmed, the mule-deer were not numerous. I believe that by choice they prefer rugged, open country, and they certainly care comparatively little for bad weather, as they will often visit bleak, wind-swept ridges in midwinter, as being places where they can best get food at that season, when the snow lies deep in the sheltered places. Nevertheless, many of the species pass their whole life in thick timber. [Illustration: THE RANCH-HOUSE ]