194 Deer of the Pacific Coast 



To the leeward of this fresh tracks of deer could 

 be found almost any morning, all near enough to 

 smell the water, but not one of them going to it. 

 I had plenty of other most positive proof that the 

 deer there, as well as the antelope, did not go to 

 water, though the days were hot enough to make 

 a man want water as much as in midsummer. 

 For many a league there was no green feed ex- 

 cept some of the varieties of cactus, and every 

 deer and antelope that I opened in this vicinity 

 was filled with it. The same is true in parts of 

 Sonora and in much of Lower California (Mexico). 

 In the latter there are large areas abounding in 

 deer as fat as you could wish, yet where you will 

 have great trouble to find water for camp. And 

 where you do find water such ground is often the 

 finest in the world to hunt on after you under- 

 stand the peculiarities of the desert. You can 

 learn to love the desert as well as the timber. 



In California I never knew deer eat cactus but 

 once. That was in a year of severe drouth, and 

 the only fat deer I saw that year was a buck that 

 was full of our thorniest cactus. Here their fa- 

 vorite food is the leaf of the live-oak or live-oak 

 brush, which is almost invariably found in them. 

 The evergreen leaves of the wild lilac, wild cherry 

 and buckthorn, with the lucerne and wild buck- 

 wheat which robe much of the hills, the moun- 

 tain-mahogany, and some of the sumacs, they also 



