OCT., 1809.] 



MAMMALS. 101 



A curious feature about Lcpus Idamathensis is the fact that it some- 

 times does, and sometimes does not, turn white iu winter. In the 

 Biological Survey collection we have brown specimens killed late iu 

 January aud white ones killed early in April. 



This species was not obtained on Shasta, but rabbit dung, supposed 

 to beloug to it, was fouiul in niiiny places, particularly under the dwarf 

 PinnH albicauUs on the timberline ridges, liabbit signs and tracks 

 were seen also in the manzanita chaparral, but as no s])ecimens were 

 secured the species is a matter of conjecture. 



Lepus californicus Gray. California Jack Rabbit. 



Occurs in Shasta Valley at the north base of the mountain. Several 

 were seen and one was killed near Edgewood September 30 by W. H. 

 Osgood. 

 Odocoileus columbianus (Richardson). Columbia Black-tail Deer. 



Abundaut on Shasta and throughout the surrounding region. Even 

 at Wagon Camp, which probably is visited by more hunting parties 

 than any otlier part of the mountain, deer were numerous, and their 

 well-beaten trails were in constant use during our stay. At first the 

 animals were commonest in the lower part of the Shasta fir forest, 

 where for a long time they were not driven away even by the frequent 

 shooting of our bird collectors. When we had been at Wagon Camp a 

 week tliey were still common within an eighth of a mile. Later, how- 

 ever, they became less numerous in the open forest and more abundant 

 in the dense chaparral of manzanita and buck-brush a little lower 

 down. They were common also on lied Butte, and along all of the 

 streams and canyons on the west, south, and southeast sides of the 

 mountain. On the west side, where water is scarce, numbers used 

 to visit the pools in Cascade Gulch, northwest of Horse Camp. In Mud 

 Creek Canyon their trails were so abundant as to form almost a mesh- 

 work. When we visited this canyon first, July 22, Vernon Bailey saw 

 eight deer; and several of us, resting on the west rim of the canyon, 

 watched a doe and fawn on one of the trails on the opposite side. 

 They were so plentiful iu a canyon about a mile east of Squaw Creek 

 that I named the ])lace Deer Canyon. Several times during the season 

 does with spotted fawns were seen in the Shasta fir forest. A yearling 

 'spike-buck' killed on Squaw Creek by Vernon Bailey August 7 was in 

 the velvet, and his worn summer coat was scant and faded. Another 

 'spike-buck,' killed in the mountains west of Scott Valley September 

 15, was in the fresh gray winter coat, with only a few red hairs of the 

 summer coat left. 



In September the old bucks, which had not been observed earlier, 

 climbed the mountain and began to appear on the higher ridges, where 

 they travel extensively in the timberline tongues of dwarf white-bark 

 pines. On September 18 I followed the tracks of two large bucks along 

 the upper part of Panther Creek and found where they had bedded 



