Study of the life history and ecology of insectivorous bats in the United States was accelerated by the discovery m 1953 (Courter, 1954) that these ubiquitous mammals are hosts to rabies virus. There was strong suspicion that insectivorous bats of the southwestern United States might be in contact with the rabies-transmitting vampire bats of Mexico (Courter, op. cit.). Consequently four projects concerned with bat rabies and ecology were set up in this area under financial support from the U. S. Public Health Service. Early work on these projects verified three significant features of the bat problem in the Southwest: (1) rabies is common in bats of this area (Eads, 1955); (2) the most abundant kind of bat in the Southwest is Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana (Sanssure), the Mexican Free-tailed, or Mexican Guano Bat 2 (Eads, 1957; Villa, 1956) ; and (3) bats of this kind move from Mexico into the Southwestern United States each spring and back into Mexico each fall (Glass, 1958; Villa, op. cit.).

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Six classes of current herbaceous and woody forage were collected seasonally from a 5-yearold mixed loblolly (Pinus taeda)-shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) plantation (in Texas) and subjected to nutrient analyses and nylon bag dry-matter digestion trials. Forages were most nutritious and digestible in the spring when tissues were succulent and growing rapidly. Browse leaves and twig tips were the most abundant forage from spring to autumn and the most nutritious and digestible forage throughout the year. Pine and the residual twigs of browse were low in quality and digestibility at all seasons. Forbs were more nutritious than grasses but both declined seasonally in nutrient quality and digestibility as their fiber content increased with maturation. A low level of phosphorus in forage tissues at all seasons appeared to be a major limiting factor for deer in the young plantation.

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