Vol. 7, No. 5 
Page 5 
The female was conspicuous as she ran back and forth with abandon from the 
nest site to the area where lining material was available. No green vegetation was 
known to have been used; old dry grass stems were apparently the preferred lining 
material. She gathered and carried transversely in her mouth sheaves of vegetation, 
the stalks extending 2-5 inches on each side. After depositing the material, 
she arranged the collected vegetation in the nest cavity with her head and forefeet. 
She spent considerable time on the alert as she dug her nest and did not browse 
during the digging; however, browsing did occur as she gathered vegetation. (It 
seems probable that browsing, the most common activity observed, doubles as a look¬ 
out activity. There are indications that browsing is also commonly used as an 
appeasement activity tending to reduce intraspecific strife.) 
The final stage of nest preparation, lining the nest with hair pulled from 
her body, was initiated by the female rather abruptly, and signaled that parturition 
was imminent. Sitting 10-15 feet from her nest site, she pulled hair from her 
shoulders, flanks, back, legs, tail, and even feet - but not from her abdomen, as 
is popularly supposed. The fact that abdominal hair is white and hair found in 
nests is gray tends to corroborate the observation that abdominal hair is not used 
to line nests. Grooming of the genitals and mammae did sometimes occur during 
this period and resembled hair-pulling, but this was irrelevant to nest construction. 
The final phase was accompanied by what apparently were frequent uterine contrac¬ 
tions which caused the female to lose locomotor control caudally. No browsing was 
witnessed during this phase. When the doe remained at the nest site and began to 
pull hair, parturition was only seconds away. 
