CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 341 



are too stiff and too brittle for the deer to "ride" down as they do the 

 willow saplings. 



At Hospital Rock in Sequoia National Park on April 21, 1933, I 

 watched a doe repeatedly stand up on her hind legs in order to eat 

 fresh, green leaves of the California buckeye (see Fig. 135). This 

 unusual food preference was apparently due to the overbrowsed con- 

 dition of the range at that place as I have rarely found deer eating 

 buckeye leaves until they become yellow and drop from the trees. 



COMPETITION WITH HORSES, CATTLE, SHEEP AND GOATS 



Some claim that there is little or no competition for food between 

 mule deer and domestic stock. Those who have studied the matter 

 thoroughly think otherwise. Dr. A. W. Sampson, a recognized author- 

 ity, in his investigation of food habits of deer in California, found that 

 in 46 .species, embracing 6 genera, of food plants eaten by deer that 

 38, or 82 per cent, are palatable to sheep ; 33 or 71 ])er cent are of value 

 as food for goats ; 25 or 54 per cent are eaten by cattle and 16 or 34 

 per cent are grazed by horses. 



My own conclusions coincide quite closely with Dr. Sampson's 

 except that I find that if we consider the utilization of trees such as 

 scrub oak and such thorny shrubs as gooseberry and Ceanothns, then 

 food preferences of mule deer are most nearly like those of goats. 

 Among the herbs, there is serious competition between deer and sheep 

 and there is competition in the grasses between both horses and cattle 

 and deer. Turning to the genus Ceanothus which is, I b?lieve, correctly 

 evaluated by Dayton in his Important Western Browse Plants, p. 106, 

 as the ''most important single browse species in California," we agree 

 that mule deer prize and utilize this shrub to even a greater extent 

 than do either cattle or sheep. The same, in my experience, is true of 

 antelope brush or bitter-brush (Purshia triclentata) which probably 

 shares second place with western choke cherry and Pacific service berry 

 and creek dogwood. These last three species are utilized much more 

 by mule deer than by cattle or sheep and with better results since I 

 have never known a mule deer to .suffer any poisonous effect from 

 eating any of them. 



ESTIMATED PALATABILITl ES 



Dixon. 



U. S. Forest Service Yosemite 



Grasses Cattle Sheep Deer 



Agrosti.s, Red-top grass 80 50 70 



Poa, Blue grass 90 70 70 



Phleum, Timothy 90 70 65 



Herbs 



ArhiUea.Yiirr<nv 20 40 50 



Anter, Aster 20 40 50 



Heracleum, Cow parsnip 80 70 10 



Heuchera, Alum root 10 30 



