Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/313

Rh The mink, whose fur is so fashionable and valuable, is common to the waters of Oregon and Washington, but most numerous in the lakes and Sound of the latter. It is said that when they inhabit the Sound, they subsist upon shell-fish.

The beaver, which was nearly exterminated in the days of the Hudson's Bay Company's occupancy, is again quite abundant in the streams of all the wooded portion of the country. One of the sights peculiar to the Lower Columbia is the "hunting-boat"—a sort of scow with a house on it—which goes peering into all the creeks and sloughs leading out of the river, after game of this sort. The skins are taken to Portland, or to some trading-post along the river, and sold or exchanged for goods.

The "California otter" also inhabits the mountain streams in considerable numbers, especially those that come down from the Cascades. The sea-otter is found along the coast, but is becoming rarer; having, it is supposed, left the American for the Asiatic coast.

The pine marten, or American sable, is in considerable numbers along the streams of the Cascade Mountains, and is found clinging to pine-trees on the eastern slopes, in Washington and Oregon. Their skins are quite valuable, though not collected except by the Indians, who prize them for ornament.

Of game birds there are great numbers, as might be conjectured from the nature of the country. The habits and habitats of this kind of game are too well known to sportsmen to need remark. We will give the names only of the most common: Mountain quail; valley quail; dusky grouse, ruffled grouse; sharp-tailed grouse, or prairie chicken (found only east of the Cascades); sage-cock (east of the Cascades); curlew (east