100 ANIMAL LIFE IN THE YOSEMITE 



wildcats are doubtless just as active as in the winter, but they then do 

 more of their hunting in the brush and among the rocks where few or no 

 tracks show. 



The track of the wildcat is of a rounded shape and on soft earth measures 

 about two inches in diameter. In snow it is somewhat larger, as the toes 

 then tend to spread apart, a characteristic which makes it possible for the 

 cats to hunt over rather soft snow. The hind foot is put exactly in the 

 tread of the forefoot of the same side ; therefore the footfall is more silent. 

 On one occasion successive footprints in the snow were about ten inches 

 apart. In some cases each of the cats which followed along the Yosemite 

 trails had walked in the footsteps of his predecessors. In other cases the 

 different individuals, or the same individual at different times, had taken 

 separate courses, for as many as seven parallel lines of tracks were noted 

 in one place. On the Yosemite Falls Trail the wildcats had done much 

 wandering ; their tracks left the trail and went out into the boulder talus, 

 then came back, only to leave again after a few steps; the cats were 

 obviously foraging for the small mammals which dwell in the rock heaps. 



Where not molested, the wildcat probably hunts nearly as much by 

 day as by night. On at least three occasions members of our party came 

 upon wildcats in the daytime. On December 9, 1914, a cat was sighted 

 on the lower part of the Yosemite Falls Trail. A second was noted Decem- 

 ber 20, 1914, about 5 p.m., below the mouth of Indian Caiion. The third 

 individual was seen one day in October, 1915, at about 4 o'clock in the 

 afternoon, on a roadway below El Portal. 



The wildcat is a skillful hunter and levies upon a wide variety of the 

 medium-sized birds and mammals. Because of its diurnal activity, the cat 

 naturally includes in its menu a number of diurnal birds such as Valley 

 Quail, which forage on the ground but roost high, out of reach, at night. 

 We found no direct evidence of the cat eating quail in the Yosemite 

 section. On a number of occasions, however, we saw scattered feathers 

 which indicated that a quail had been killed and eaten by some carnivore, 

 whether by a Gray Fox or by a wildcat we could not determine. The 

 numbers of quail captured by cats are probably overestimated by sports- 

 men. At Smith Creek, east of Coulterville, the wildcats during the winter 

 months subsist to a considerable extent upon Western Robins. Mr. Donald 

 D. McLean has reported (1919, p. 160) the finding of the remains of no 

 less than six robins in the stomach of one wildcat killed March 10, 1919. 



As for mammals, the stomach of a wildcat taken in Yosemite Valley 

 about March 18, 1920, contained a considerable amount of Gray Squirrel 

 hair. The cats seen hunting on the boulder talus near Yosemite Falls Trail 

 were presumably after Boyle White-footed Mice and Streator Wood Rats, 

 the two rodents which are common there. 



