INTRODUCTION 



been very consistently gathered and is especially desirable in 

 the case of large mammals. It is often very inconvenient and, 

 because of the lack of the proper equipment, even impossible 

 to take the weights of Deer, Bear, Mountain Lion, etc., but if 

 sportsmen could secure the weights of their game it would not 

 only help to fill in gaps in our knowledge of North American 

 mammals, but it would also serve to correct the prevalent ideas 

 of fabulous weights for our larger game mammals. It has been 

 truthfully stated that, for some reason or another, the geo- 

 graphical ranges of the exceptionally large mammals never 

 seem to coincide with the range of the Fairbanks scales. 



Description of Color 



The description of the color of a mammal presents several 

 difficulties, the most obvious being the determination of the 

 actual color by the describer himself and the definition of the 

 color in terms which will convey the correct color perception 

 to the reader. Most mammals have color patterns made up 

 of a blending of several colors or shades. The individual hairs 

 may have two or three distinct color bands and the pelage 

 may be made up of two or more types of hairs differently 

 colored. The eye receives a general color impression from the 

 blending of all of these, or upon closer inspection the general 

 impression may be resolved into its components. In some 

 cases the color descriptions in this field book apply to the tones 

 and shades of the individual hairs, but when a pattern is 

 plainly predominated by a single color, the description refers 

 to the general impression. 



Precise color nomenclature calls for a terminology which 

 would often be troublesome for the average reader. Most 

 mammalogists use color terms as set forth in Ridgway's 

 Color Standards and Nomenclature, comparing directly with the 

 charts given in that book. Wherever Ridgway's terms are 

 more or less self-explanatory they have been used in this 

 field book. Occasionally I have drawn upon more general and 

 less restricted terms, either because the nomenclature of the 

 precise shade is too technical or because the color pattern of 

 the animal in question was so variable that the looser term 

 best suited it. 



