A Deer's Bill of Fare. 203 



the wild blue-grass. They would, I fancy, crop all rich 

 grass-seeds in the milk, since then they are soft and succu- 

 lent. When the resources of civilization are at com- 

 mand, they find a pleasant change of diet in the green 

 heads of barley, wheat, oats, rye, and buckwheat. Besides 

 the last, there is a plant called wild buckwheat which 

 they affect.''' I have the word of John Muir, repeated to 

 me by Ranger Ellis of the Sierra Reserve, that they love 

 the flowers of a little plant of the purslane family, which 

 grows close to the ground almost as flat as a track, in 

 six or eight, or more, delicate purple velvety tufts, and is 

 appropriately called pussy's-paw. 



Among the plants which they like is one growing ten 

 or fifteen inches high with the brightest of red flowers, 

 very handsome as seen on the naked gravel among the 

 scattered pines, and irresistibly attractive to humming- 

 birds—the scarlet bugler. They love filaree, Indian let- 

 tuce, sweet clover, sour or bear clover, and are fond of 

 the wild cucumber, called by the Mexicans chilicothe. 

 They love the suncup, which is one of the little evening 

 primroses, and when feed is scarce the deerweed, or wild 

 broom, the fireweed, with its purple-pink blossoms, a 

 favorite food of that shyest and m.ost elusive creature of 

 the forest, the sewellel, or mountain beaver. They 

 love the blossoms and tender stalks of the soapweed and 

 the leaves of what is called the quinine-bush {Garrya),'\ 

 on account of its medicinal, bitter leaves. When heavy 



* Eriogonum fasciculatum. 



t Some botanists place this in the dogwood family; others, more exclu- 

 sive, in a family by itself. Miss Alice Eastwood, of the California 

 Academy of Sciences, a high authority, says: " I incline to the latter view, 

 for the plants are very different in all respects from any form of dogwood. 

 . . . Some species have very bitter fruit, while others have fruit which 

 is palatable." 



