CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 269 



the final break between the mother and her fawn did not take place 

 until the following fall, when the fawn was fifteen months old. 



From extensive observation over a period of ten years, it has been 

 my experience that the weaning time is a most critical one in the fawn's 

 life. If green food is available and the fawn makes the transfer from 

 milk to a green food diet, there is an excellent chance that the young 

 animal will not only make a good growth, but that it will fatten up 

 in the fall and enter the winter in excellent physical condition. On the 

 other hand, experience has shown that where, through lack of suitable 

 green forage, the fawns are not properly weaned but continue to nurse, 

 they not only endanger their own future welfare but may even be the 

 means of the untimely death of their mothers. In Yosemite Valley on 

 December 8, 1927, I found a pair of such fawns that had not been 

 promptly weaned and which still sought to nurse. As a result of nurs- 

 ing them, their mother was exceedingly thin, being so gaunt that her 

 ribs could be counted. The mother's physical condition was so poor 

 (see Fig. 103) that it was a question of serious doubt if she could sur- 

 vive the winter. In fact, subsequent investigations proved that she 

 did not. In December, the physical condition of the two fawns was 

 good, but they had not properly learned to seek their own food and to 

 get along without their mother so that, with her death, their existence 

 was also jeopardized. 



It has been my observation that on our forest lands serious compli- 

 cations result if the range is overstocked early in the summer with 

 domestic sheep or cattle ; so that little or no green grass remains by 

 the time the fawns should be weaned. In one instance in Fresno 

 County early in September, I found the range so grazed over by cattle 

 that we had to take in feed for our pack burro. The physical condition 

 of the does, and particularly of the fawns that we saw, was decidedly 

 poor, and their chance of resisting disease, escaping natural enemies, 

 and surviving the hardships of winter was greatly decreased. 



