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Summary Sixteen wildebeest were marked with radio transmitters and tracked for varying lengths of time during the period between late November, 1971, and mid‐July 1972. They were repeatedly radiofixed from an aircraft prior to, during and after their annual wet season visit to the Serengeti Plain. Fix‐to‐fix tracks of animals showed that each hurried to the Plain at the onset of the rains, performed oscillatory movements over an individually distinct, elliptically shaped, fractional part of the Plain area, and departed into the woodland as the Plain dried out. Average fix‐to‐fix rate of travel approximated 3–75 km/day. Large aggregations of animals, armies, were smaller and more restless in the woodlands than on the Plain. Smaller aggregations included within armies, troops, varied in size as a function of activity. They were small when feeding and large when marching. Troops averaged larger in the woodlands mostly because they were more often marching there than on the plain. The tracked animals were equally successful in finding green forage in the presence of water in both habitats. The item in shortest supply appeared to be the presence of green forage in the woodlands and of water on the Plain. It is concluded that structural attributes of the woodlands, by lowering the security level of animals, played a part in making the Serengeti Plain attractive to the animals.

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The relative use of 11 major brush types and a rootplowed area by white-tailed deer was studied on the San Pedro Ranch in Dimmit County, Texas. The mesquite drainage, hackberry drainage, and guajillo scrub types were preferred by deer in fall, winter, and spring. In summer, the mesquite drainage was preferred and all other types were used about equally. The granjeno drainage, rootplowed, and mesquite Savannah types were used least. The preferred brush types occurred on sandy loam soils. The composition, density (within a range of tolerance), structure, and phenology of brush were not important factors influencing selection of types by deer. The quality of typical brushlands as deer habitat appeared to be largely a function of range site. Range sites capable of high gross production of herbaceous plants deserve consideration for their value to deer in brush clearing schemes. Some brush should be left intact as screening cover on such sites to insure continuing deer populations on ranches practicing brush control in the Rio Grande Plain.

No abstract