40 ANIMAL LIFE IN THE YOSEMITE 



ACCOUNTS OF THE SPECIES 



Scope 



In the chapters to follow, dealing with the three hundred and fifty-five 

 kinds of terrestrial vertebrate animals in the Yosemite section, general 

 uniformity of treatment has been one aim. For each species there is given, 

 first, the accepted or approved vernacular name; then the scientific name, 

 chosen with regard to the best technical usage. The order in which the 

 chapters follow one another is essentially that in which the species are 

 classified in the standard lists of North American vertebrates ; namely, for 

 mammals. Miller's List of North American Land Mammals in the United 

 States National Museum, 1911; for birds, the American Ornithologists' 

 Union Check-list of North American Birds, edition 3, 1910 ; and for reptiles 

 and amphibians, Stejneger and Barbour's Check List of North American 

 Amphibians and Reptiles, 1917. Departures from these authorities, either 

 in sequence or in names employed, have been made occasionally by us, but 

 only when justified by special study. 



The present volume is not a systematic treatise in the sense of relating 

 primarily to descriptive zoology or to classification. Hence, technicalities 

 along these lines are reduced to a minimum, being mentioned briefly, or 

 restricted to small-type footnotes. The theme of the present book is natural 

 history — that which relates to the living animal. 



The "field characters" are intended to include the chief features by 

 which each species may be recognized out of doors. They do not have to 

 do with the scientific 'specimen,' such as constitutes the basis of the usual 

 descriptive account. Ideally, our "field characters" are such as are dis- 

 cernible in the living animal at the ordinary eye-range into which a person 

 can approach the animal under normal conditions. The great majority 

 of these characterizations have been derived from our own observations 

 in the Yosemite region, as recorded in our notebooks. Exceptionally, we 

 have drawn upon our experience elsewhere; or, in the few cases where 

 experience was lacking altogether, we have drawn upon specimens for 

 characters inferred to be useful in the field. 



In small mammals and in reptiles and amphibians, the field character- 

 ization has been amplified to cover their appearance and proportions when 

 in hand; for opportunity to capture these animals often presents itself 

 to an out-of-doors observer. Even in these cases, however, it is exclusively 



