234 ANIMAL LIFE IX THE YO SEMITE 



The Mule Deer which inhabit the Yosemite National Park seem to have 

 responded favorably to the protection afforded them; they are remarkably 

 tame, and will usually permit a person wdio moves slowly to approach very 

 near. Despite their size, their somber coloration renders them surprisingly 

 inconspicuous when in brush thickets, but the recurrent flapping of their 

 big mule-like ears sometimes betrays their presence. They exhibit great 

 curiosity and often when frightened out of a trail will circle about the 

 traveler and may soon be discovered gazing at him from some new position. 

 The following excerpt from the notebook of the senior author describes 

 an interesting meeting with some of these animals. 



Ridge between Yosemite and Indian creeks, June 4, 1915. — Four deer, an old doe and 

 three smaller deer without evident horns, were walking about 50 feet from me. I first 

 came upon them suddenly; the three smaller ones stampeded over a rise of ground; but 

 the old doe was curious and even came toward me. I remained quiet, only wiggling 

 my fingers, and this interested her. The three young had vanished. Presently she began 

 to look back at intervals, and they finally appeared again. She evidently wished to 

 follow up the ridge, so she walked in a half -circle around me, the other three following 

 at a little distance, single file. . . . They all disappeared over the ridge a few minutes 

 ago, but at this moment three of them are staring at me over a log 60 yards off. The 

 female has a (bullet?) hole through her left ear. I can see daylight through it. The 

 others are about two-thirds the size of the female; probably last year's fawns (could 

 she have had three?). . . . The doe has just now become excited and uttered 8 rather 

 loud snorts in irregular succession, schfew, and has given several stiff-legged bounds over 

 the ridge. The young ones have vanished. They all did a great deal of flapping of 

 their big ears, as if the flies bothered them. 



On Jmie 24, 1920, about 9 a.m., a company of 5 deer were come upon 

 in a grove of close-growing yellow pines on the floor of Yosemite Valley 

 near Clarke Bridge. They were all males, but no two were of the same size. 

 The antlers, in the velvet with knobby ends, varied from short 'spikes' less 

 than half the height of the ear to the big three-forked type. These deer, 

 the largest one in the lead, moved along slowly, paying little attention to 

 the human observers only 40 yards or so off. They kept reaching up to 

 nip off the highest sprays of ceanothus, which here was shade-grow^n and 

 sparse of leafage. 



Trainmen on the Yosemite Valley Railroad told us that deer are 

 frequently encountered on the tracks at night. The animals seem dazed 

 by the glare of the headlight. The enginemen always slow up so as to give 

 the animals a chance to * come to ' and get off the track. 



Mule Deer are browsing rather than grazing animals ; that is to say, 

 they prefer leaves and young shoots of certain shrubs and trees to grasses 

 and other terrestrial plants. At all times and in all altitudes their pre- 

 ferred forage is deer brush, mountain lilac, snow bush, and other repre- 

 sentatives of the plant genus Ceanothus. Among all of these, Ceanothus 

 integerrimus, the big-leaved, sweet-flowered bush of middle altitudes, is 



