CALIFORNIA FISPI AND GAME 



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first sought out, ate and destroyed all of the evening primrose plants. 

 They next attacked and ate most of the leaves and tender shoots of a 

 bed of thimble-berry bushes that had been carefully reared there. 



On July 16, 1927, I photographed a large four-point buck that was 

 making a meal of the tender, growing frond tips of the common brake or 

 fern (see Fig. 123). The tips of this fern are eaten regularly by Cali- 

 fornia mule deer. 



Mule deer browse some even in mid-summer. This was demon- 

 strated by a doe observed and photographed on July 1, 1927, while 

 she was browsing in a thicket of western choke cherry (see Fig. 124), 



Fig. 123. The tender growing tips of tlie common brake fern are regularly eaten 

 by mule deer as here shown. Yosemite, July 16, 1928. Mus. Vert. Zool. No. 

 5709. 



and also by a buck which was photographed while he was browsing on 

 a willow on July 4, 1929 (see Fig. 126). 



On July 23, 1929, at an altitude just under 10,000 feet at the 

 western base of Mount Dana, I found fresh tracks of six deer, all being 

 of medium size with no large tracks of bucks. By following these 

 tracks I found freshly cropped vegetation which showed that the deer 

 had browsed along the edge of a green meadow and had eaten both 

 grass and shrubs particularly certain alpine willows. In the Mount 

 Whitney region on August 23, on a divide at the very head of Kern 

 River, I found where a large Inyo mule deer buck had crossed a 

 divide at 12,150 feet coming over from the east side. Here again 



