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CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 



bushes, where she could watch them, yet leave them largely to their 

 own resources. However, at the first alarming sound, the mother 

 rejoined her offspring and they all stood alert in the open with ears 

 cocked forward in an attempt to locate the hidden danger. 



After the fawns have been weaned, the average doe shows a renewed 

 interest in her offspring. This solicitude increases with the coming of 

 winter storms, and constant watchfulness for danger is kept by the 

 mother. On December 8, 1927, I watched a mother and her nearly 

 grown fawn feeding on the tender young blades of sprouting annual 

 grasses that had sprung up under a protecting cover of dead weeds. 

 Although the fawn by this time was well grown and in the full winter 

 coat, his mother stood at attention and remained on guard while her 

 offspring fed with his head hidden in the weeds and grass. 



Pig. 103. This fawn was not properly weaned and continued to nurse, thereby 

 endangering his own as weU as his mother's life. Note the thinness of this doe. 

 Subsequent observations proved that she did not survive the following winter's cold 

 and snow. Yosemite, December 8, 1927. Mus. Vert. Zool. No. 5643. 



During the December snowstorms, the more venturesome fawns 

 root about independently in the fresh snow for fallen oak leaves and 

 acorns. In Yosemite on December 9, 1927, some of the fawns were 

 found still by their mother's side foraging on dead weeds that stuck 

 up through the snow. As a matter of fact, in many cases, the mother 's 

 active care extends through the entire first winter of the fawn's life, 

 and it is not unusual to find a doe in early summer followed by both 

 a small young fawn and her nearly-grown last year's fawn. I have 

 found, in certain cases where the fawns bore some distinguishing ear- 

 mark so that positive recognition was possible, that they followed their 

 mothers about during the second summer of their lives. In these cases 



