BULLETIN FLORIDA STATE MUSEUM VOL. 33(4)


maintaining the boundaries of the adult female's home range. Even if young
on the periphery of the adult range were effective in preventing encroachment
on the adult's range by other bobcats, only a relatively small fraction of the
total range perimeter would be "protected." The tendency of the young to
concentrate their activity at the periphery of the natal range during the late
pregnancy and postnatal period of the mother may have been due to the
combination of their age and the increased aggressiveness of the mother during
the breeding season. In this connection, Winegarner (1985a) once observed
the semi-tame female attacking one of her older young when it returned to "her
domain."
 There are few comparative data on movements of bobcat family groups in
 other parts of the geographic range. The best description is that of Bailey
 (1979) for Idaho bobcats. General patterns in the movements of Florida
 kittens were similar to those observed in Idaho in that movements were
 generally restricted to den areas until the kittens were past 3 months of age.
 After this age, more of the range was used by the offspring. In South Carolina,
 Marshall (1969), found that an older juvenile used the entire range of its
 mother, and Kitchings and Story (1979) reported the same behavior for a
 juvenile in eastern Tennessee.
 Few data were obtained on dispersal and establishment of home ranges by
juveniles, but we believe that most moved out of the study area. However, one
apparent case of a male (M6) and a female (F8) of the same litter becoming
established as a breeding pair in the natal range was recorded. These
presumed young of F3 remained in the mother's range after the deaths of the
overlapping adult males (Ml, M3) and abandonment of the range by the
mother. With time, both individuals extended their movements beyond the
natal range, and the female had litters in spring 1980 and 1981. The northward
expansion of the male's range apparently coincided with the disappearance of
an unmarked male in that area and probably resulted in overlapping part or all
of the range of his mother (F3), who had shifted her range into the area earlier
(Figs. 4D-5D).
 Little information is available on dispersal and subsequent home range
establishment of young bobcats in other geographic regions. Bailey (1974) in
Idaho noted that young bobcats appeared to avoid settling in areas occupied by
residents and recovered five tagged kittens 1-2 years later as adults from sites
outside the study area, although he had no data on their movements during the
intervening period. Two subadults radiotracked in South Carolina by Griffith
et al. (1980) abandoned their initial activity areas (in the natal range?) in early
spring and began a pattern of movements involving temporary localization of
activity for varying periods of time. They concluded that their data supported a
model of subadult bobcat dispersal characterized by "nomadic search for
unoccupied, resource-adequate home range sites," as implied by Bailey (1974).
The tendency of the subadults monitored by Griffith et al. (1980) to use