(56 ZOOLOGY. 



Of its distribution I can say little. To the northward from San Francisco we did not find it, 

 and its range is probably rather south than north of that point. 

 Our specimens were obtained in the markets of San Francisco. 



ALOE AMERICANUS, J a r d i n e . 



The Moose. 



BAIRD, Gen. Rep. Mammals, 1857, 631. 



The moose does not exist in any part of California or Oregon Territory, and the Columbia 

 river may be said to form the southern limit of its range west of the Eocky mountains. We 

 saw the horns of moose killed in Washington Territory, but could not learn from the whites or 

 Indians that any had ever been killed south of the river. 



This is one of several animals common to the two sides of the continent, such as the elk, black 

 bear, large grey wolf, grey fox, beaver, mink, &c., which have so much of a northern habitat 

 as to permit them to inhabit the entire breadth of the continent north of that great barrier to 

 smaller and more southern species of mammals and birds, the gre*at basin and the wide-spread 

 desert of the upper Missouri, Yellowstone, and Platte. 



A similar inosculation of the faunae of the east and west takes place in northern Mexico, 

 south of the great basin, where the bassaris, the black-footed raccoon, the Texan skunk, &c., 

 with a great number of birds, are found quite across from Texas into California. 



CERVUS CANADENSIS, E r x 1 . 



Elk. 



BAIKD, Gen. Eep. Mammals, 1857, 537. 



The elk was once perhaps more widely distributed over the North American continent than 

 any other quadruped ; it existed throughout the entire territory lying between the northern 

 provinces of Mexico and Hudson s bay, and between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Within 

 the United States east of the Mississippi very few are left, except in the region bordering Lake 

 Superior. On the western tributaries of the Mississippi it is still very common, and perhaps 

 equally so in California and Oregon. West of the Rocky mountains, it was formerly most 

 abundant in the valleys of California, where it is still far from rare. In the rich pasture land s 

 of the San Joaquin and Sacramento, the old residents tell us, it formerly was to be seen in 

 immense droves, and with the antelope, the black-tailed deer, the wild cattle, and mustangs, 

 covered those plains with herds rivalling those of the bison east of the mountains, or of the 

 antelope in south Africa. 



The favorite haunts of the elk in California are the wide stretches of u tule&quot; bordering the 

 rivers and lakes of the valleys I have mentioned. It is said that, unlike most large quadrupeds, 

 the elk can never be &quot;bogged, and he traverses these marshy districts with a facility possessed 

 by no other animal. 



During the rutting season, when the bucks are rushing through the tule in search of the 

 females, a common mode of hunting them is to mount a horse, and riding along the edge of 

 the marshes to call the buck by an imitation of the cry of the doe. He comes plunging on his 

 course, marked for a long way by the trembling rushes, till, led on by the fatal signal, he 

 bursts out of the cover with streaming sides, and, tossing his antlers, looks around to find the 

 object of his search. This is the moment improved by the hunter to plant in his shaggy breast 

 the fatal bullet. 



The elk of the western coast differs in nothing, so far as I could see, from that of the eastern 

 States ; unless it may be that in some localities it attains a larger size than any killed in the 



