1898] 



21 



NOTES OF A NATURALIST IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 



The following interesting notes have been kindly com- 

 municated to the Club by Mr. W. E. Brooks of Mount Forest, 

 Ont. They are extracts from letters from Mr. Allan Brooks, an 

 ardent naturalist sportsman and collector, now living at Vernon, 



Vernon, B. C, 7th Nov., 1897. My dear Father, -After my 

 last unlucky trip after Bighorn I did not like to tell you that I 

 was going alter them again, as I knew you would be anxious 

 about my goingso late in the year ; but I am now safe back again, 

 and I send you a sketch of my best head as mounted by myself ; 

 length of horns 265^ inches, circumference 14 inches. I also got 

 a ewe and a yearling, as well as a 9-point buck male deer. My 

 companion, Dick Ford, got a 2 year old ram, with horns about half 

 as big as the above, and 3 deer. We could have shot many 

 more deer, but it was no use wasting game. There was an old 

 miner, placer mining in the creek up there, lor whom we got a 

 winter's supply of meat, S'j very little meat was wasted. I was 

 so bent on getting them this time that I ordered a .30 cal. 

 smokeless rifle,as they are the rifles for long range ; but after all 

 I had to go without it, as it was necessary to .send to the factory 

 for it. If I had had it, I should have got 3 heads like the above. 

 The average shot is 300 yards, and most of m)- shooting 

 was done at double that distance. I wounded some others which 

 I never got. Like the Rocky Mountain goats the Big-horns are 

 very tough and take far more killing than a Black Bear. I shot 

 the old ram through, behind shoulder, smashing the opposite 

 shoulder, and again as he was going away ( 175 yards)halfan inch 

 above root of tail, the bullet ranging through his vitals, and again 

 in the chest before he went down. A big buck I shot in the 

 same place, only made 2 jumps and rolled over, and it, too, was 

 further away when I fired. The ewe I knocked over at 250 yds; 

 she and a ram were standing together. 



Of birds I saw large flocks of Leucostictes, Clark's Crows 

 very common, and lots of Ravens, also Golden Eagles. Once 



