3 1 6 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



in cattle pastures might improve grazing by keeping weeds down. 36 

 How r ever, cattle also eat many plants taken by deer besides grass, though 

 their normal food is not the same as the favorite food of deer. Com- 

 petition between sheep and deer is more serious, as their food habits 

 more nearly coincide. McLean says that over 60 per cent of the plants 

 eaten by deer are eaten also by sheep, and 50 per cent are grazed also by 

 cattle. Competition is therefore certain. 37 He says that the food of 

 deer in summer includes 50 kinds of plants; that they will browse 

 almost any kind of plant to some extent; that the deer bush (Ceano- 

 thus integgerimus) is their favorite food in winter; and that they do 

 not eat azalea, larkspur, cow parsnip and other plants which are poison- 

 ous to domestic stock. Hall lists 10 species of trees and shrubs upon 

 which deer browse in Yosemite Park, and says that on the Kaibab 

 Plateau a native species of clover is their favorite food, though they 

 eat many herbaceous plants and mushrooms. 38 The Kaibab item may 

 be abnormal, as the range there is overstocked with deer, resulting in 

 a shortage of their usual food. 



In Pennsylvania 393 deer stomachs contained laurel, teaberry and 

 other leaves, numerous acorns, particles of pine and hemlock leaves 

 and bark; all contained acorns and some contained corn, grass and 

 wheat. 39 In California the Columbian black-tailed deer are said to 

 "resort to the oak groves to glean the crop of acorns, of which they 

 are very fond." 40 Some deer in Maine are reported to eat fish, probably 

 a habit acquired by a few individuals from eating refuse about camps. 41 

 Mearns says of the Mexican mule deer (Odocoileus heniionus canus) 

 that in addition to its chief food of shrubs, leaves and many small 

 plants, it is "extraordinarily fond of acorns, especially those of the 

 evergreen oak (Quercits emoryi)."* 2 Fawns in captivity ate all sorts 

 of vegetable food and fruit. 



The following items are abstracted from Bailey's Texas report: 43 

 Texas white-tailed deer (0. texanus): natural food is leaves of live- 

 oak, brush, acorns, mesquite and other bean pods. Even as late as 1902 

 they were being killed by "wagonloads" for the market, and many 

 were killed "for the hides only, leaving the carcasses to rot." They 



"Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, p. 36, 1926. 



87 McLean, What deer eat, California Fish and Game, xiv, 221-223, 1928. 



38 Hall, The deer of California, California Fish and Game, xm, 250-259, 1927. 

 Dixon, What deer eat, Amer. Forests and Forest Life, xxxiv, 143-145, 1928. 



89 Sutton, in The Pennsylvania deer problem, Pennsylvania Board of Game Comm. 

 Bull. No. 12, p. 19, 1929. 



^Henshaw, Kept. Chief of U. S. Engineers, 1876, Part 3, p. 529. 



41 Burgess, Fish-eating deer, Journ. Mammalogy, v, 64-65, 1924. 



^Mearns, U. S. Natl Museum Bull. No. 56, p. 200, 1907. 



48 Bailey, Biological survey of Texas, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 25, 1905. 



