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Show 1873.] LORD WALSINGHAM ON NORTH-AMERICAN DEER. 563 the sunny slopes at the edge of the deep snow-line during the winter and I have seen, upon the same hills, but rather more frequenting the clumps of firs and of Cupressus, as many as two hundred or more of Cervus macrotis in a single day. On the opposite side of the river is a higher and more thickly timbered ridge, separating the two forks of the John Day's, upon which are to be found at certain seasons a considerable number of Cervus canadensis. After experiencing great difficulty, owing to the severe snow-storms and the depth of the slightly crusted snow, I was able to fall in with a few scattered members of the large herds, which had left tracks on their journey west, and to secure one fine head. In the spring, going from Camp Watson to Fort Dalles, on the Columbia river, Ovis montana and Antilocapra americana only were to be met with, except about the head of Bridge Creek, where we found Cervus macrotis, now beginning to return in large numbers, having for the most part shed their horns. After this time, following down the Columbia river to Portland, and through the Willamette valley south, I reached in June the Rogue-River Mountains and the Siskiyon range, and struck out on to the coast at Crescent City. In both these ranges Cervus columbianus was the only Deer I saw ; but C. canadensis certainly does occur in places, although now gradually becoming exterminated. Bears are also very abundant • but Ursus horribilis (the Grizzly Bear) was not to be found ; and, indeed, I have only on two or three occasions met with the track of this species (which is easily distinguishable), once on Mount Shasta, once on the Cascade Range, and subsequently in Humboldt County, and have failed in every attempt to obtain a specimen. Passing south along the coast from Crescent City to Eureka, I saw again Cervus canadensis, and what I suppose to be only a small variety of C. columbianus, which here seems to attain a growth very much inferior to those in the neighbourhood of Mount Shasta and the Nevada range. The horns have seldom more than four points each ; and I have heard it suggested that the species is different. I very much regret that m y opportunities of preserving skeletons of Cervus columbianus were neglected, in the hope of more convenient ones occurring, and that I was thus deprived of the pleasure of adding specimens of it to m y collection, which is now at the Cambridge Anatomical Museum. I have, however, skins of all the animals mentioned in this paper, showing the summer and winter coats of some of them. I ought, perhaps, to add that the hunters who were with me reported two varieties of Black-tailed Deer about the head of Trinity River, and in the district south-west of Mount Shasta-the mountain variety having very fine horns, often with a great many points, but bein°- lighter in average weight than that which was to be found on the lower levels and about the banks of the streams. These latter were said to have shorter limbs, and not usually such good heads ; but the evidence on this subject was not conclusive or reliable. 36* |