Vertebrate Fauna of the Pacific Coast 

 adjacent districts, more plentiful in individuals than 

 they are in species. Of the more interesting kinds 

 may be mentioned the Columbian black-tailed deer, 

 famed in sportsmen's annals; the Roosevelt elk, now 

 reduced to small remnants existing in extreme north- 

 western California, western Oregon and the Olympic 

 region of Washington; the strange rodent called 

 Aplodontia or mountain beaver, which lives in bur- 

 rows in wet hillsides overgrown with rank clumps 

 of sword fern; the peculiar shrewmole, as its name 

 implies combining the external features of the 

 shrews and of the moles, but probably descended 

 from some Asiatic stock not closely similar to 

 either; the varied thrush, or Oregon robin, whose 

 weird yet sweet notes may be heard throughout the 

 summer south even to the Humboldt redwoods and 

 in winter generally over west-central and southern 

 California; and the diminutive western winter wren 

 whose creaking song greets one from dense tangles 

 in ravine bottoms or from mossy logs in the deepest 

 shade of the redwoods. There are, in addition, a 

 number of other mammals and birds, of more or 

 less wide general range elsewhere, though present- 

 ing local species or subspecies in different parts of 

 the humid coast belt. (See PL XIV.) 



While reptiles are very few in species and indi- 

 viduals in the coast belt, amphibians are corres- 

 pondingly numerous in both respects, and include 

 some species of exclusively Pacific distribution. 

 The big, slug-eating salamander, Chondrotus, is one 

 of these. 



The fascination ascribed to the desert and por- 

 trayed so vividly by many literary writers does not 

 limit itself to such features as the clearness of the 

 atmosphere and the ruggedness of the scenery. The 

 naturalist who visits the Lower Sonoran desert for 

 the first time finds a world of wonderful things so 

 new to his experience in many respects as to make 

 comparison with the previously known impossible. 



The widespread idea that the desert is inhabited 

 only by the horned-toad and side-winder is a true 

 reflection of the fact that reptiles are there the most 

 conspicuous of the vertebrate classes. This is partly 

 due to the fact that the mammals are nearly all 

 strictly nocturnal, while the reptiles are in large 

 part actively abroad by daylight, though not as a 

 rule exposing themselves to the intense sunshine of 

 midday. 



The midwinter season on our western deserts 

 finds but few reptiles actively abroad at any time 

 of day; for the nights and sometimes the days are 

 cold. But by April the heat of the sun makes itself 



110 



