CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 227 



miles east of this point. Subsequent investigation showed that they 

 did not return to this summer habitat until the following spring. 



The same general route is followed by mule deer in going to and 

 in coming from their summer range. My own investigations extend- 

 ing over a period of 20 years indicate that rarely do mule deer in migra- 

 tion pass from one drainage basin to another. AVhen they do, their 

 absence is only temporary. Thus, mule deer that winter on the 

 eastern or great basin side of the Sierra Nevada sometimes cross over 

 the main Sierran crest in late summer, but as far as we have been able 

 to learn, they nearly always return and winter on the eastern side of 

 these mountains. This has been noted in Yosemite near Tioga Pass. 



In the Lassen section I found that the Rocky Mountain mule deer 

 ranges regularly as far west as the head of Hat Creek at the eastern 

 base of Lassen Peak. We have one definite instance in the Lassen sec- 

 tion, where mule deer wintered on the western side of the divide. On 

 February 22, 1920, on the north rim of Battle Creek, at an elevation 

 of 4000 feet, about ten miles above Paynes Creek Post Office in Tehama 

 County, Gus Nordquist saw three unquestioned mule deer, which he 

 watched for some time at a distance of 50 feet. There was about two 

 feet of snow on the level at this date, through which the deer were 

 pawing to get at food, a gray growth known locally as "squaw carpet.'' 

 Nordquist states that the evidence of pawed snow indicated that these 

 mule deer had spent the winter in that locality and had not gone down 

 out of the snow as do the coast black-tailed deer that are native to that 

 locality. 



In contrast to this it has been my experience that during winters 

 with light snowfall, California mule deer often remain at relatively 

 high altitudes, from 6000 to 7000 feet, until January first or even later. 

 This is especially the case in many places along the southern part of 

 the Sierra Nevada, as at Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park, where 

 the deer can drop directly from the 7000-foot ridges down into the pro- 

 tected canyons at elevations of 2000 feet or less, and thereby get out 

 of the snow in a very short distance. In most such instances the deer 

 can get below the snow line by merely dropping a mile or two down the 

 ridge. 



Thus in Sequoia Park on January 24, 1924, at 5000 feet deer 

 were abundant. Here I counted a band of 14 deer and found that they 

 consisted of six does, six fawns and two large bucks. I v/as able to 

 approach wdthin 30 feet of many of these deer and found they were all 

 California mule deer. 



On December 18, 1929, I found that much of the ground in Giant 

 Forest was still bare of snow and that deer were hunting over it for 

 bits of staghorn lichen that had been blown off the trees by a recent 

 gale. On the same day at 7000 feet elevation on a M^arm south- and 

 west-facing slope, I found a band of mule deer, two does, three fawns 

 and two big bucks, feeding together in a dense thicket of bitter cherry 

 and snow brush. The brush, four feet in height, effectively concealed 

 the does and fawns. However, the heads and antlers of the bucks 

 projected above it. Well traveled deer trails led back and forth through 

 this thicket, and deer tracks and droppings showed that this was the 

 favorite feeding ground of all the deer in the region at that time. Some 

 of the larger bucks were found to be unusually wild, and they were 



