79 



a parasite on the roots of other species. We found many of 

 its flowering heads, uprooted and chewed, in the wake of 

 browsing antelopes. Captain Funcke informed me that he 

 had also seen the animals eating leaves of the ironwood 

 (Olneya tesota). 



During feeding hours the adult pronghorns lie down to 

 rest a dozen times a day, always starkly in the open, ten or 

 twenty yards from cover, doubtless from fear of the pumas 

 {Felis improcera) which sometimes prowl down from the hills. 

 At noon of the hottest days we found the antelope's fresh 

 beds in the most unshaded situations. Captain Funcke said 

 that through the night, too, they slumber only in exposed 

 places, and by daybreak they begin to browse. Usually we 

 were able to distinguish fresh tracks from those several hours 

 old by the moistness of the droppings, which would be found 

 at rather frequent intervals in depressions that the antelopes 

 had scratched in the soil. 



Although pronghorns are known to be able to drink bitter 

 alkaline water, and are said to repair periodically to regular 

 watering places, there can be little doubt that those of the 

 Pattie Basin do not drink at all during the greater part of 

 the year. Nelson (1911) states specifically that the Lower 

 Californian deer are mainly xerophilous, and he infers the 

 same of the antelopes. On the southwestern slopes of Pattie 

 Basin there is certainly no water between the mountain 

 tinajas and the Tres Pozos, and the tracks of antelopes have 

 never been observed to lead to either source. Captain Funcke 

 told me, however, that in mid-summer, when the vegetation is 

 parched and the Laguna Salada has been filled from distant 

 Rocky Mountain snow fields, small bands of them occasionally 

 go down to the shores of the flooded plain. 



Since the above was set in type, Captain Funcke has sent 

 eight adult Lower Californian pronghorns — six bucks and two 

 does — to the Brooklyn Museum. These were all killed on the 

 western side of Pattie Basin between March 16 and March 

 25, 1917. All were shedding the hair when killed, although 

 one buck and one doe had only just begun. The others have 



