cervus virginianus

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

1.Any animal; especially, a wild animal. [Obs.] --Chaucer. [1913 Webster]

Mice and rats, and such small deer.— Shak.[1913 Webster]

The camel, that great deer.— Lindisfarne MS.[1913 Webster]

2.(Zool.) A ruminant of the genus Cervus, of many species, and of related genera of the family Cervid[ae]. The males, and in some species the females, have solid antlers, often much branched, which are shed annually. Their flesh, for which they are hunted, is called venison. [1913 Webster]

Note: The deer hunted in England is Cervus elaphus, called also stag or red deer; the fallow deer is Cervus dama; the common American deer is Cervus Virginianus; the blacktailed deer of Western North America is Cervus Columbianus; and the mule deer of the same region is Cervus macrotis. See Axis, Fallow deer, Mule deer, Reindeer. [1913 Webster]

Note: Deer is much used adjectively, or as the first part of a compound; as, deerkiller, deerslayer, deerslaying, deer hunting, deer stealing, deerlike, etc. [1913 Webster]

Deer mouse (Zool.), the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus, formerly Hesperomys leucopus) of America.

Small deer, petty game, not worth pursuing; -- used metaphorically. (See citation from Shakespeare under the first definition, above.) "Minor critics . . . can find leisure for the chase of such small deer." --G. P. Marsh. [1913 Webster]