The type localities of the mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus (Ra?nesque,
1817), and the Kansas white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus macrourus
(Ra?nesque, 1817), are not where we thought they were
Neal Woodman
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, MRC-111, National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, U.S.A.,
e-mail: woodmann@si.edu
The type localities of the mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus (Ra?nesque,
1817), and the Kansas white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus macrourus
(Ra?nesque, 1817), are not where we thought they were
Neal Woodman
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, MRC-111, National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, U.S.A.,
e-mail: woodmann@si.edu
Abstract.?Among the iconic mammals of the North American West is the
mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). This species and a western subspecies of the
white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus macrourus) were two of seven
mammals originally named and described as new species in 1817 by
Constantine S. Ra?nesque. Ra?nesque never saw the animals that he named.
Instead, he followed the then-acceptable practice of basing his new species on
animals characterized in another published work, in this case the putative
journal of Charles Le Raye, a French Canadian fur trader who was said to
have traversed the upper Missouri River region before the Lewis and Clark
Expedition and whose journal described some of the wildlife in detail. Unlike
the mule deer, whose existence has been established by generations of
biologists, wildlife management professionals, and sportsmen, Le Raye and
his journal have since been proven to be fraudulent. Because Ra?nesque?s
names were published in accordance with the taxonomic conventions of his
time, they remain available, but, based on the questionable source of his
descriptions, the identities and type localities of the species must be viewed as
unreliable. Fortunately, much of the Le Raye journal was derived from other,
veri?able contemporary sources. In particular, the descriptions of the two deer
were based on the published journal of Patrick Gass, a member of the Lewis
and Clark Expedition. Using the Gass journal as the original source of
Ra?nesque?s descriptions, the type localities for the two deer can be reliably
placed in Lyman County, South Dakota.
Keywords: Cervidae, Odocoileus virginianus dacotensis, Odocoileus virgin-
ianus texanus, taxonomy, type specimen
The naturalist Constantine S. Ra?n-
esque (1817) named and described seven
new species of North American mammals
based on the purported journal of the
French Canadian fur trader Charles Le
Raye (Table 1). A long excerpt from Le
Raye?s journal had been published as a
supplementary chapter to the book A
Topographical Description of the State of
Ohio, Indiana Territory, and Louisiana
(Cutler 1812; hereafter, A Topographical
Description), authored anonymously by ??a
late of?cer in the U.S. Army.?? That ??late
of?cer?? has since been identi?ed as Jervis
Cutler, a former captain in the 7th U.S.
Infantry Regiment who was once stationed
in New Orleans under the command of
Major Zebulon M. Pike (Hildreth & Meigs
1852, Cutler & Cutler 1888, Cutler 1890).
According to the journal account (Cutler
1812), Le Raye and six unnamed compan-
ions were on a trading expedition to the
Osage nation in Missouri in September
1801, when they were taken prisoner along
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
126(3):187?198. 2013.
the Osage River by a Sioux war party.
Separated from his men soon after their
capture, Le Raye was taken north along
the Missouri River to the mouth of the Big
Sioux River. During his captivity, he
traveled extensively with his captors, trek-
king as far north as the Upper Missouri
River in present day North Dakota and as
far west as the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming.
Le Raye ultimately remained a prisoner of
the Sioux for three years and ?ve months,
until he managed to escape by canoe down
the Missouri River to the safety of the
French settlements (Cutler 1812). Le
Raye?s supposed odyssey began three years
before the Lewis and Clark Expedition
(1804?1806) embarked to explore much of
the same region (Lewis et al. 1814), which
made him ??the ?rst white man to penetrate
into the Upper Yellowstone region and
return with a written account?? (Dollar
1974:4?5). The tale of Le Raye?s captivity
included descriptions of animals that
inhabited the region and were hunted by
the local tribes for food and skins (Cutler
1812). Many of the animals discussed were
then presumably new to the known fauna
of North America. Following accepted
practice (International Code of Zoological
Nomenclature, Article 12.2 [ICZN 1999]),
Ra?nesque (1817) named and described
seven new species of mammals, indicating
the Le Raye journal (Cutler 1812) as the
basis for his descriptions. Because Ra?n-
esque based his new species on this
published work, type specimens do not
exist, and, therefore, our modern under-
standing of these taxa relies upon Ra?n-
esque?s (1817) descriptions and, more
practically, on the populations of these
animals that inhabit their presumed type
localities.
Compounding the uncertainty, the his-
torian Clyde Dollar (1974, 1982) deter-
mined that the early nineteenth-century
trader Charles Le Raye and his original
journal never existed, both perpetrated as
a well-crafted hoax (for earlier skeptics, see
also Hyde 1937, Schell 1968). Based on an
exhaustive paragraph-by-paragraph re-
view of its historical, cultural, linguistic,
and geographical contents, Dollar (1974,
1982) showed that much of the Le Raye
journal (Cutler 1812) was derived from
other published sources. Notable among
these works is the journal of Patrick Gass
(1807), a sergeant who served with the
Lewis and Clark Expedition. Other sourc-
es include either Meriwether Lewis?s (1806)
report to President Thomas Jefferson, or
one of William Fisher?s (1812a, 1812b) two
counterfeit Lewis and Clark Expedition
narratives, the latter of which themselves
were drawn from other works. The Le
Raye journal was almost certainly au-
thored by Jervis Cutler, who is document-
ed to have had access to at least some of
the original source materials, as well as
having contact with participants in Pike?s
Table 1.?List of mammals named and described by Ra?nesque (1817) based on the Le Raye journal
(Cutler 1812).
Ra?nesque?s taxon Current identi?cation
Corvus1 macrourus ? ??long-tailed deer?? Odocoileus virginianus macrourus
Canis chlorops ? ??green-eyed fox, or meadow fox?? Canis latrans Say (1822)
Cervus hemionus ? ??mule deer?? Odocoileus hemionus
Melesium pratense ? ??meadow badger?? Taxidea taxus Schreber (1778)
Strepriceros2 eriphos ? ??Cabree?? a fanciful beast based partly on references to the
pronghorn, Antilocapra americana (Ord, 1815)
Felis misax3 ? ??cat?? unidentifiable (possibly a wolverine)
Lynx aureus ? ??wild cat?? unidentifiable
1Ra?nesque?s misspelling of Cervus. 2Strepriceros is a misspelling (or correction) of Strepsiceros Ra?nesque
(1815). 3Ra?nesque (1832) subsequently renamed Felis misax as Felix macrura.
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188 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
western exploring expeditions (Cutler
1888, 1890; Cutler & Cutler 1888).
Hence, apparently unbeknownst to Ra-
?nesque, the species described by him
(Ra?nesque 1817) were based on a fraud-
ulent account, written by a man, Jervis
Cutler, who had never seen the animals
?rsthand and who had never visited the
region they were reported to inhabit. Yet,
Ra?nesque?s work remains relevant be-
cause among the names he proposed are
two that are still recognized and used
today: Cervus hemionus for the mule deer
(Odocoileus hemionus) and Cervus macrou-
rus for the Central Plains subspecies of the
white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus
macrourus), sometimes called the Kansas
white-tailed deer (Rue 1989). These names
remain available under the regulations of
The International Code of Zoological No-
menclature (ICZN 1999; hereafter, The
Code) because they conform in all respects
to the provisions of Articles 10 through 20.
Ra?nesque?like countless professional
anthropologists, geographers, historians,
and zoologists since?was deceived by the
Le Raye journal, and no provision in The
Code (ICZN 1999) renders invalid a
species unwittingly named on the basis of
a widely accepted, published account that
later proves to be a fraud. Moreover,
changing the established scienti?c names
of well-known wildlife species is a long and
contentious process that is at odds with the
ICZN?s explicit goal of stabilizing scienti?c
names (ICZN 1999). As explained below,
changing the names of these North Amer-
ican deer is also unnecessary.
Just as many of the geographical and
ethnographical details in the Le Raye
journal were based on identi?able and
reliable written sources, the descriptions of
many of the mammals are traceable to
contemporary published works. Among
the many potential sources (see Dollar
1974, 1982), the most relevant record for
details about the animals in the Le Raye
journal, and therefore, for Ra?nesque?s
descriptions of these mammals, is Gass?s
(1807) journal. Signi?cantly, much of the
information from Gass can be compared
to the journals of other members of that
expedition. Support for Gass?s account of
the two deer, for example, comes from the
journal of Sergeant John Ordway (Moul-
ton 1995). Because the original specimens
on which Ra?nesque based his descrip-
tions of Cervus hemionus and C. macrou-
rus?as derived from the Gass (1807)
journal via the Le Raye journal (Cutler
1812)?were animals taken by the Lewis
and Clark Expedition, the characteristics
and type localities recorded by members of
that expedition are crucial to our contem-
porary understanding of the identities of
the two taxa. In the absence of type
specimens, and given the fraudulent nature
of the Le Raye journal, we must rely on
the primary literature sources for this
information.
The original publications of Ra?nesque
(1817) and Cutler (1812) are not generally
available, even in specialized libraries. For
this reason, I provide the original descrip-
tions for Cervus hemionus and C. macrou-
rus in the following section. Ra?nesque
(1817) began each of his formal species
descriptions by quoting the relevant pas-
sage from the Le Raye journal (i.e., the
quotation marks are as in Ra?nesque?s
paper), followed by his own interpretation
of the important characteristics (i.e., the
paragraph beginning with ??Note??). Being
careless in his copying, the passages
Ra?nesque ??quoted?? are not exactly as
they appeared in A Topographical Descrip-
tion. For the descriptions of the two deer,
the differences between the original and his
copy are primarily in punctuation, with the
notable exception of the ??long tailed deer??
(C. macrourus), which is described as
??larger?? than the red deer in the putative
Le Raye journal (Cutler 1812:165), rather
than ??longer,?? as stated by Ra?nesque
(1817) (see Table 2). ??Red deer?? and
??common deer?? are contemporary vernac-
ular names applied by members of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition to the familiar
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VOLUME 126, NUMBER 3 189
eastern subspecies of white-tailed deer,
Odocoileus virginianus virginianus (Zim-
mermann, 1780) and O. v. borealis Miller
(1900) (Burroughs 1995, Moulton 1983?
1999). Presumably, Cutler (1812) appro-
priated this vernacular use of ??red deer?? in
the Le Raye journal.
After Ra?nesque?s (1817) comments, I
quote the corresponding description from
Gass (1807) to demonstrate how the
animals described by Ra?nesque, derived
from the fraudulent Le Raye journal,
ultimately are based on real animals
observed by members of the Lewis and
Clark Expedition. From Gass?s (1807)
journal, we can determine the characteris-
tics that were considered distinctive at the
time Ra?nesque (1817) described the two
taxa. Finally, the animals on which the
descriptions were based can be traced to a
speci?c Lewis and Clark encampment,
which should be considered as the true
type locality for each taxon.
Ra?nesque?s Descriptions of Two Deer
1. Cervus macrourus Ra?nesque (1817:436)
??During our stay, the Indians killed a deer, which
is called the long tailed deer. It was longer than
the red deer, of a darker colour, and with a white
belly. Its horns are short, small, and somewhat
?at; its tail nearly eighteen inches long. They are
said to be plenty in those plains.?? The plains of
the Kanzas river.
Note. This concise description is suf?ciently
accurate to enable us to ascertain that it belongs
to a new species of deer, unknown east of the
Mississippi, to which I shall give the name of
Corvus [sic] macrourus, which means long tailed
deer; it may be characterized as follows?horns
somewhat depressed, shorter than the head, body
brownish above, white below, tail elongated.
The original description (Cutler
1812:165) appears in the section of the
putative Le Raye journal dated 4 Novem-
ber 1801, when the French Canadian fur
trader was supposedly encamped with his
captors on a small branch of the Kansas
River. This stream is generally considered
T
ab
le
2.
?
C
om
pa
ri
so
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of
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ar
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of
lo
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C
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7)
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190 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
to be the Wakarusa River (Miller &
Kellogg 1955, Hall 1981, Dollar 1982),
and Miller & Kellogg (1955:804) deter-
mined the type locality of Cervus macrou-
rus to be the ??plains near Wakarusa Creek,
Douglas County, Kans[as]?? (Fig. 1).
2. Cervus hemionus Ra?nesque (1817:436)
??A kind of deer is frequently killed here, (on the
Sioux river) called mule deer. It is smaller and of a
darker colour than the red deer, having large
branched horns. The ears are very large, the tail
about ?ve inches long with short dark hair, and at
the end a tuft composed of long black hair.??
Note. This short account is, however, charac-
teristic; it belongs to my Cervus hemionus (mule
deer) a new species, akin to the Cervus melanurus,
or black tail deer. Its description will be?horns
very branched, longer than the head, ears
elongated, body of a reddish brown, tail brown
with a black tuft at the end.
This description is in the section of the
putative Le Raye journal (Cutler 1812:168)
after 8 December 1801, when Le Raye and
his captors were reported to have arrived
at their winter encampment along the Big
Sioux River (Dollar 1982), now part of the
border between Iowa and South Dakota.
Bailey (1926:41) de?ned the type locality of
the mule deer as the ??Mouth of Big Sioux
River, [Union Co.,] S[outh]. Dak[ota]??
(Fig. 1).
Confusing the issue further, Ra?nesque
(1817) here coined a third new deer name,
??Cervus melanurus?? for the ??black tail[ed]
deer.?? This vernacular name does not
appear in the Le Raye journal. It was used
initially by members of the Lewis and
Clark Expedition to refer to the Great
Plains cervids that they subsequently
determined to call the mule deer (Odocoi-
leus hemionus hemionus). Later in the
expedition, they changed their usage of
??black tailed deer?? and ??black tailed
fallow deer?? to refer to the distinctive
Columbian black-tailed deer, O. h. colum-
bianus (Richardson, 1829). Ord (1815:292)
listed this latter animal in his ??Zoology of
North America?? as the ??Black-tailed
Fallow Deer.?? He included the description
from Lewis et al. (1814), but he did not
provide a scienti?c name. Ra?nesque
(1817), with a too-often-characteristic la-
ziness, gave the deer a scienti?c name, but
provided no description or indication,
rendering Cervus melanurus a nomen
nudum. He was correct, however, in
noting the close relationship of this taxon
(i.e., O. h. columbianus) with the mule deer.
Descriptions of Deer from Sergeants Gass
and Ordway, Members of the Lewis and
Clark Expedition
The vernacular names employed in the
putative Le Raye journal for the two
species appeared in no published source
prior to the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Members of the expedition often referred
to what is now called Odocoileus virgin-
ianus macrourus as the ??longtailed deer?? or
??longtailed fallow deer.?? Similarly, the
name ??mule deer?? was probably ?rst seen
in print in Clark?s (1805; Jackson 1978)
letter of 2 April 1805, to Governor William
Henry Harrison, which was reprinted in
many contemporary newspapers. Among
the ??great variety of animals?? seen by the
expedition, Clark (1805:3; Jackson
1978:229) mentioned ??the long ear?d mule
or black tail deer (black at the end of the
tail only).?? Lewis noted in his journal for
10 May 1805 that members of the expedi-
tion ??have by way of distinction adapted
the appellation of the mule deer?? for the
species in preference to the name ??black-
tailed deer,?? which was favored by the
French voyageurs employed by the expe-
dition (Moulton 1987:138). Given Le
Raye?s own alleged French Canadian
background, it would have been surprising
for him to refer to these animals as mule
deer rather than black-tailed deer, had he
truly existed.
Among the possible sources for the Le
Raye journal?s animals, only the published
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VOLUME 126, NUMBER 3 191
journal of Gass (1807) and the then
unpublished journal of John Ordway
(Moulton 1995) provide descriptions of
both species of Ra?nesque?s (1817) deer at
the time they were ?rst encountered.
Gass?s (1807:40) description of these ani-
mals appears in his journal for 17 Septem-
ber 1804:
The black-tailed, or mule deer have much larger
ears than the common deer and tails almost
without hair, except at the end, where there is a
bunch of black hair. There is another species of
deer in this country with small horns and long tails.
The tail of one which we killed was 18 inches long.
Ordway?s journal (Moulton 1995:61) for
the same date reads:
Fig. 1. Map of the northern Great Plains of the United States: 1, Traditional type locality of Cervus
macrourus on the ??plains near Wakarusa Creek,?? Douglas County, Kansas; 2, Traditional type locality of the
mule deer, Cervus hemionus, at the ??mouth of Big Sioux River,?? Union Co., South Dakota; 3, ??Plomb Creek??
encampment of the Lewis and Clark Expedition on 16?17 September 1804, above the mouth of Corvus Creek,
Lyman Co., South Dakota, herein amended as the type locality for both C. hemionus and C. macrourus.
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192 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
towards evening Capt Lewis & party retarned
they had killed 13 common Deer. Some of them
were handsome fauns? 2 Black tailed Deer
which differ from the other Deer. verry large ears
Scarce any hair on their tail only the bunch of
black hair on the end of a grayish colour they are
pleanty in this Country but not discribed in any
other parts? they killed another kind of Deer
with Small horns & long tail. Gibson killed 1 its
tail is 18 Inches long & differ also from any yet
seen by the party.
The only other published source that
comes close to the description in the Le
Raye journal is Brackenridge?s (1814)
??Views of Louisiana,?? originally published
serially in the Louisiana Gazette in 1812.
The wording of his description of the two
deer suggests, however, that, like Cutler
(1812), he also relied heavily on the earlier-
published Gass (1807) journal for its
characterization of the deer (Brackenridge
1814:57):
Two varieties of deer are discovered high up on
the Missouri. The black tailed, or mule deer;
remarkable for very long ears, and tails almost
without hair, except at the end where there is a
small tuft of a black color. The other kind is
distinguished by very small horns, and a tail of
unusual length?eighteen or twenty inches.
In general, the descriptions of the two
deer in the Le Raye journal (Cutler 1812)
compare well with those from Gass (1807)
and Ordway (Moulton 1983?1999) (see
Table 2). The length of the tail is partic-
ularly telling. As stated by Audubon &
Bachman (1854:78) for the eastern white-
tailed deer, there can be considerable
variation in this measurement: ??At one
time we examined the tails of some
common deer in Fulton market, New
York, and found that the longest exceeded
nineteen inches, while the average length
does not go beyond nine.?? That the
putative Le Raye journal reported exactly
the same length as Gass and Ordway, the
latter of whom reported the measurement
from the same individual, strongly sug-
gests that Cutler (1812) appropriated the
measurement from Gass (1807).
The sources for other characteristics
given in the Le Raye journal (per Cutler
1812), such as the comparison of size and
pelage coloration of the two western deer
relative to the ??common deer?? (Table 2),
are unknown. In their journals and other
documents (Moulton 1983?1999), Meri-
wether Lewis and William Clark some-
times referred to Odocoileus virginianus
macrourus as the ??longtailed fallow deer,??
but the descriptor ??fallow?? (i.e., pale
brown or reddish yellow in color) does
not appear in Gass (1807) or other sources
likely available to Cutler (1812). These
other characteristics might be based on
another Lewis and Clark Expedition jour-
nal, now lost (Dollar 1982, Moulton 1983?
1999); on information Cutler obtained in
New Orleans from Missouri River traders
and trappers or from some member of
Pike?s western expeditions (Pike 1810); on
his own observations of animal skins
brought downriver as part of the fur trade;
or simply on literary invention. Lewis
wrote a detailed description of the mule
deer in his unpublished journal for 10 May
1805 that was copied by Clark in his
journal for 11 March 1806 (Moulton
1983?1999). These accounts included
measurements, the form of the antlers,
differences between the sexes, and mea-
surements of the tail. That the description
in the Le Raye journal (Cutler 1812)
included none of these more detailed
characteristics and, in fact, contradicts
Lewis by indicating the mule deer to be
the smaller animal, indicates that Cutler
(1812) did not have access to those
journals.
Amended Type Localities of the Deer
Named by Ra?nesque
The deer described in the Le Raye
journal (Cutler 1812), and later by Ra?n-
esque (1817), as being obtained along the
Wakarusa River in Kansas (long-tailed
deer, Cervus macrourus) or the Big Sioux
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VOLUME 126, NUMBER 3 193
River in Iowa or South Dakota (mule deer,
Cervus hemionus), are actually both based
on descriptions of deer taken near the
Missouri River in south-central South
Dakota. Both Gass (1807) and Ordway
(Moulton 1995) described animals that
were taken 17 September 1804, while
members of the Lewis and Clark Expedi-
tion were encamped at ??Plomb Camp,?? on
the west side of the Missouri River, a little
above Corvus Creek (? American Creek),
north of the mouth of the White River and
near the modern town of Oacoma
(43848 0N, 99822 0W), Lyman County,
South Dakota (Moulton 1987, 1995).
Because Gass?s journal (1807) was proba-
bly the primary source for the descriptions
of the two deer in the Le Raye journal, the
type locality for both taxa should be
corrected to the west side of the Missouri
River above the mouth of Corvus Creek,
Lyman Co., South Dakota (Fig. 1).
The correction of the type locality is not
of great taxonomic signi?cance for the
mule deer. The locations of both the
putative Le Raye camp on the Big Sioux
River and the Lewis and Clark camp along
the Missouri River are well within the
broad distribution of Odocoileus hemionus
hemionus (Hall, 1981), although the Lewis
and Clark camp is closer to the core of the
modern geographic range of the species
(Anderson & Wallmo 1984). The change of
the type locality for O. virginianus macrou-
rus from Kansas to South Dakota, how-
ever, has potential implications for the
taxonomy and distribution of several of
the western North American subspecies of
white-tailed deer. The corrected type lo-
cality for O. v. macrourus in South Dakota
has been mapped variably as within the
distribution of O. v. dacotensis Goldman &
Kellogg (1940); near the boundary be-
tween O. v. dacotensis and O. v. macrourus;
or along the boundary between O. v.
texanus (Mearns, 1898) and O. v. dacoten-
sis (Hall 1981, Baker 1984, Rue 1989,
Heffel?nger 2011). Yet, in their journals
and other records (Moulton 1983?1999),
Lewis and Clark indicated the presence of
the ??longtailed fallow deer?? along the
length of the Missouri River north of the
type locality of O. v. macrourus. This
passes through a region that is currently
mapped as being inhabited by O. v.
dacotensis (e.g., Hall 1981, Baker 1984,
Heffel?nger 2011). Correct morphological
and genetic characterization of O. v.
macrourus is made more challenging by
the extirpation of white-tailed deer and
mule deer from all but the Black Hills
region of South Dakota by 1900 (Richard-
son & Petersen 1974). Although both
species had repopulated portions of the
state west of the Missouri River by 1965,
the genetic relationship of the modern
population to the original population is
unknown.
Subsequent Taxonomic History of
Ra?nesque?s Deer
For a variety of reasons (Merrill 1949,
Boewe 2003, Woodman 2012), a relatively
small percentage of Ra?nesque?s scienti?c
names have gained currency. Five of the
names Ra?nesque (1817) coined based on
descriptions in the Le Raye journal (Cutler
1812) disappeared entirely from the liter-
ature (Table 1), so it is signi?cant that his
names for the mule deer and the long-
tailed deer remain in use. For many
decades, the mule deer was recognized as
Cervus macrotis Say (1822), based on
Thomas Say?s description of specimens
obtained in Harding Co., New Mexico (see
Goodman & Lawson 1995), during Ste-
phen Long?s Expedition to the Rocky
Mountains (James 1822). Merriam (1898)
was the ?rst to recognize the priority of
Cervus hemionus Ra?nesque.
Hamilton-Smith (1827a:134, 1827b)
used the name Cervus macrourus for the
long-tailed deer ??described in Le Raye?s
MS. Journal,?? but did not credit the name
to Ra?nesque (1817), or to anyone else.
Hamilton-Smith?s (1827a, 1827b) contri-
// i t/P d ti / / b /li j b / b 126 03/ b 126 03 06/l t / b 126 03 06 3d 3 O t b 2013 1 25 P 194
194 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
bution was in a multivolume synopsis of
the animal kingdom organized by Grif?th
(1827?1834), and Richardson (1829:257)
subsequently placed the name ??C. macrou-
rus Grif?th?? in synonymy with his own
Cervus macrotis columbiana (? Odocoileus
hemionus columbianus). Baird (1857:649)
recognized Ra?nesque as the authority for
C. macrourus when he placed the name in
possible synonymy with C. leucurus Doug-
las (1829). Coues (1893:843) ?rst recog-
nized the validity of Cervus virginianus
macrurus Ra?nesque as a ??variety,?? but
misspelled or corrected the name. Allen
(1902) subsequently recognized Dama v[ir-
giniana]. macroura Ra?nesque, which be-
came Odocoileus virginianus macrourus
with the acceptance of the masculine
Odocoileus as the genus name.
Despite the historical and modern eco-
nomic importance of the genus Odocoileus,
a comprehensive, specimen-based system-
atic and taxonomic review of the North
American taxa has never been published.
Such a study will be a massive undertak-
ing, but it is also a necessary step for
understanding the evolution and history of
deer in North America.
Summary of the Essential Points
 Ra?nesque (1817) named the mule deer,
Cervus hemionus (? Odocoileus hemi-
onus), and the long-tailed deer (?Kansas
white-tailed deer), Cervus macrourus (?
O. virginianus macrourus), based on
descriptions of deer in the putative Le
Raye journal, which was published in
Cutler (1812).
 The Le Raye journal has been deter-
mined to be a fabrication by Cutler
(1812), based on information from
various sources, including the published
journal of Patrick Gass (1807).
 Despite the fact that Ra?nesque unwit-
tingly based his characterizations of the
two deer on a ?ctional account, his
names and descriptions follow stipula-
tions of The International Code of
Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999)
and are taxonomically available.
 The closest contemporary source for the
descriptions in the fraudulent Le Raye
journal (Cutler 1812) is Gass?s (1807)
journal, which describes deer taken on
17 September 1804, near a Lewis and
Clark Expedition encampment in Ly-
man Co., South Dakota.
 The type locality of Odocoileus hemionus
should be corrected from the plains near
Wakarusa Creek, Douglas Co., Kansas,
to the west side of the Missouri River
above the mouth of Corvus Creek,
Lyman Co., South Dakota.
 The type locality of Odocoileus virgin-
ianus macrourus should be corrected
from the mouth of Big Sioux River,
Union Co., South Dakota, to the west
side of the Missouri River above the
mouth of Corvus Creek, Lyman Co.,
South Dakota.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Daria Wingreen-Mason and
Leslie Overstreet (Joseph F. Culman 3rd
Library of Natural History, Smithsonian
Institution). Michael D. Carleton, Sandy
Feinstein, Alfred L. Gardner, Elie?cer E.
Gutie?rrez, and an anonymous reviewer
provided substantive comments that greatly
improved this manuscript. Any use of trade,
product, or ?rm names is for descriptive
purposes only and does not imply endorse-
ment by the U.S. government.
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