16 18 June 1980. Pliny Mine to Mt. Palmer Left camp at 8 a.m. this morning to hike to the summit of Mt Palmer in search of unusual limestone-loving plants and whatever animals or signs thereof we might come upon. Reached the pass in about 20 min, a new record! From pass, climbed rocks on S side of pass, cut across talus fields, found the fault separating volcanic from limestone rocks, followed ridge through a meadow-like community of small Ophrys and blooming Castilleja. Discovered a tree (pinon) that looked like it might have been used as a scratch post by Felis concolor - bark scraped away on one side to a height of about 5 feet, deep scrapes in wood. Photographed this. Found well over a dozen small diarrheic dung pats, blackish in color, under 10 cm in diameter, round. The one we picked apart contained a piece of a lizard tail, some small mammal hair, some insect fragments, some juniper berries (?) and piñon nuts. My thoughts are that the depositor of these treasures was a Gray Fox. Also we saw some coyote scat and a considerable amount of artiodactyl (probably deer) scat along the trails we followed. There are many trails - in the denser P-I on the volcanic terrain I suspect that the makers of the trails were mule deer. On the limestone, the