106 ANIMAL LIFE OF CARLSBAD CAVERN 



species extends from the Pecos River to the Pacific 

 Coast and northward to southern Oregon. It is about 

 the size of a small house cat, with a strikingly barred 

 or ringed tail, longer and larger than the rest of the 

 animal, and with a fox-like face and cat-like feet. It 

 is well known to prospectors and trappers of the region, 

 but its plain gray fur, while soft and fine, has little 

 value in commerce and is rarely seen in actual use. To 

 the prospector the animals are of special interest, as 

 they often visit his cabin and catch the surplus mice 

 and rats, and in some cases become so tame as to make 

 interesting pets. In the great cave their tracks and 

 bones were found in several of the largest rooms, the 

 most numerous and freshest tracks being found in the 

 farthest and deepest room of all, to which we descended 

 from the floor of the large south room by a hundred- 

 foot wire ladder. Later Carl Livingston reported one 

 seen alive in this room. An almost complete skeleton 

 was found in the south room, and other parts of skele- 

 tons were found near the entrance to this room and on 

 both sides of the Devil's Den; much old excrement was 

 observed on the guano-covered shelves of the large bat 

 room back of the west entrance to the cave. Poison 

 and traps had recently destroyed most of the animals 

 outside, but one visited the west entrance to the cave 

 several times during my stay and left his cat-like 

 tracks on the dusty floor of the arched doorway and 

 along the narrow shelf that runs past the little drinking 

 pool and around the limestone wall to the various 

 niches where cliff mice and wood rats live. Some of 

 these cliff trails are little more than creases in the sheer 



