1913] Grinnell-Swartli : Birds ami Mammals of San Jacinto 321 



GENERAL ACCOUNTS OF THE MAMMALS 



Odocoileus hemionus californicus (Caton) 

 California Mule Deer 



Sign was seen plentifully in nearly all parts of the Upper 

 Sonoran chaparral belt, and thence up through Transition, both 

 on Santa Rosa and the main San Jacinto Mountain. On the 

 San Gorgonio Pass side no evidence of the presence of deer 

 was seen below Schain's Ranch. 4900 feet. Here and at Fuller's 

 Mill a few tracks were seen, and a buck was jumped at the 

 latter place June 30. In Strawberry Valley a doe with two 

 fawns was seen July 7. In the vicinity of Tahquitz Valley. 8000 

 feet, during July and August, fully a dozen deer were seen, one 

 being an old buck, the rest yearling bucks, does, and fawns. 

 During the middle of the day the deer were staying on the sides 

 of the low ridges margining the valley, mostly at the upper rdif 

 of the brush-patches, where these gave place to thickets of small 

 firs interspersed with open .stretches. Many beds w< re to be 

 seen beneath young firs or pines, merely irregular bare places 

 about two feet across scraped in the carpeting of pine needles. 

 There are never any feces in or close about deer beds as there 

 always are in the case of sheep. An occasional bed was situated 

 on the crest of a ridge, but as a rule the animals selected locations 

 down on the slope below, within fifty yards of the crest. 



About the margins of the thickets of Ceanothus cordulatus, 

 the numerous footprints showed plainly how the deer had stood 

 and browsed. There were plenty of places where the new growth 

 of this plant had been nibbled off. Heaps of feces along these 

 feeding places showed that the deer defecate while browsing. 

 In the stomach contents of a deer shot in this vicinity the only 

 identifiable inaterial consisted of leaves and newly grown twigs 

 iii' Ceanothus cordulatus; it would seem that this is the chief, 

 if not the only plant foraged upon in the Transition zone at 

 this season. 



No definite evidence was forthcoming that the deer ate grass 

 in the meadows. Tracks showed that the streams and meadow 

 margins were often visited, but we thought solely for water. In 



