Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/410

 404 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

qnin Valley and low-lying regions tributary thereto. Dr. Newberry,^* writing of the elk in early days/ says :

West of the Bockj moontainB, it was formerly most abundant in the valleys of California, where it is still far from rare. In the rich pasture lands of the San Joaquin and Sacramento, the old residents tell us, it formerly was to be seen in immense droves, and with the antelope, the black-tailed deer, the wild cattle, and mustangs, covered those plains with herds rivalling those of the bison east of the mountains, or of the antelope in south Africa.

Bosqui^* while making a journey from Stockton to Mariposa in December, 1860, records seeing "bands of elk, deer, and antelope in such numbers that they actually darkened the plains for miles, and looked in the distance like great herds of cattle/'

HittelU' includes as one item in a list of exports from San Fran- cisco in 1842 three thousand elk and deer skins at prices ranging from fifty cents to a dollar. Eobinson^* asserts that the American elk, occur- ring on the northern side of San Francisco Bay, was then hunted for its tallow, which was preferred to that taken from bullocks.

At the present time the Boosevelt elk is making a last stand in the extreme northwestern portion of the state in the counties of Humboldt and Del Norte ; while the valley elk is reduced to a herd in the tule lands of the southern San Joaquin Valley estimated to contain four or five hundred head. In 1905 the United States Department of Agriculture succeeded in transporting twenty-six of these elk to the Sequoia National Park in Tulare County, where the herd has now increased to about fifty head. About a year ago the California Academy of Sciences distributed fifty-four of the valley elk to seven parks and reservations in different parts of the state, where conditions were most favorable for their survival.

That the elk has taken a strong hold upon the interest and imagina- tion of the people of California is shown by the fact that the killing of an elk within the state is made a felony, which is the severest penalty imposed for the violation of any game law within the commonwealth.

Mountain Sheep

The description of the mountain sheep of the high Sierra by 6rin- nell^^ is one of the most interesting of recent developments in Cali- fornia mammalogy. The pioneer zoological investigators^' connected with the Pacific railroad surveying parties all report mountain sheep on Mt. Shasta. Newberry's account says:

18 Pac B. B. Beports, 6, 1857, Zoology, p. 66. 1* Quoted by Evermann, Calif, Fish and Game, 1, 1915, p. 86. ""History of CaHfornia," 1898, 2, p. 479. i«''Life in California," 1846, p. 61. IT Univ. CaUf. Publ. ZooL, 10, 1912, pp. 143-153.

18 Newberry, Pac. B. B. Beports, 6, 1857, Zoology, p. 72; Eennerly, same, 10, 1859, p. 72; and Suckley and Gibbes, same, 12, p. 137.

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