![](/media/an_white-tailed-fawn-sq.jpg)
Lewis had no reason to write about the common or fallow deer of the East Coast, although in using it for the purpose of comparison, he gave quite a clear picture of it. John Godman’s 1828 description relied partly on Lewis and Clark’s journals.
![](/media/an_fallowdeer-Ford-2211.jpg)
Lewis and Clark used the word fallow mainly in reference to the color of the Virginia whitetail. Few, probably, had ever seen a picture of a European fallow deer, and may have been unaware that this species’ distinctive antlers were not round like those of indigenous North American deer.
![](/media/an_Col-BlkTail-Audubon-sq.jpg)
Lewis’s conviction that the “black tailed fallow deer of the coast” and the “common fallow deer” were two distinct species was sufficient to urge later investigators to try to clarify them.
![](/media/an_deer-longtail-Audub.jpg)
One of the most confusing terms in Lewis and Clark’s lexicon of quadrupeds was the adjective long-tailed—or longtailed. At the Three Forks on 29 July 1805, he compounded the ambiguity.
![](/media/an_muledeer.jpg)
Drouillard spotted the first “Deer with black tales” on 5 September 1804, on the cliffs upstream from the mouth of the Niobrara River in northeast Nebraska. By 10 May 1805 Lewis had seen enough specimens to write an 800-word description of the new species.