264 



CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 



hidden in the tall fjrass some fifty yards distant from each otlier. On 

 the morning of July 10, when the fawns were not quite one day old, I 

 found the motlier nursing them at 8 o'clock in the morning. She first 

 went to the female fawn and nursed it, then started to coax it across the 

 meadow as fast as its Aveak legs permitted for a distance of about one 

 hundred yards to a point where the male fawn was hidden in a bunch 

 of marsh grass. The mother nursed the male fawn for 10 minutes and 

 the female for 15, then, thoroughly drained, she went off to feed by the 

 river. We kept watch all day, but the mother did not nurse the female 

 fawn again until 3.40 in the afternoon, while the male fawn was not 

 nursed until 5.45 o'clock — an interval of almost ten hours elapsing 

 between meals in this instance. While the mother was away feeding, 

 the female fawn wandered nearly eighty yards from the spot where 

 her mother had left her. However, the mother seemed to know about 

 where to find her offspring and succeeded in locating this fawn without 



Fig. 100. Female fawn nursing, standing sheltered by its mother's body. 

 Yosemite, July 10, 1928. Mus. Vert. Zool. No. 5749. 



difficulty. In another instance where the fawn had wandered away 

 during the mother's absence, I watched and found that when she was 

 unable to locate her fawn she gave a low bleat which was scarcely 

 audible to my ears at a distance of 60 yards, but, upon hearing its 

 mother call, the faAvn jumped to its feet from its hitling place and 

 then the mother rushed quickly over to it. 



This particular doe usually remained standing while the fawn 

 nursed, but normally during the first three or four days of their lives, 

 fawns nurse while the mother is lying down hidden in tall grass. This 

 latter arrangement makes for greater safety for the mother and her 

 offspring. If the doe stood while the fawn nursed, the latter frequently 

 walked in between its mother's forelegs and nursed with its tail to its 

 mother's head (see Fig. 100). The female fawn was noted to nurse 



