1936] 



MAMMALS OF OREGON 



81 



CERVUS CANADENSIS ROOSEVELTI MERRIAM 

 ROOSEVELT'S WAPITI ; ROOSEVELT'S ELK ; OLYMPIC ELK ; MOLOK of the Wasco 



Cervus roosevelti Merriam, Biol. Soc. Wash. Proc. 11 : 272, 1897. 

 IClervus] occidentalis Hamilton Smith, Griffith's Cuvier, Animal Kingdom, v. 4, 

 p. 101, 1827. 4 



Type. Collected on Mount Elaine, near Mount Olympus, Wash., by Hans 

 and Chris Emmet, October 4, 1897. 



General characters. Size of Cervus canadenste nelsoni or slightly larger. 

 Color darker, horns shorter, heavy and often flattened, or " webbed ", toward 

 the ends. In winter pelage, the body is dark buffy brown to dark gray-brown ; 

 tail, rump patch, chin, eyering, inside of ear, and spot at base rich fulvous 

 or buffy brown; head, neck, legs, and breast dark brown or blackish; belly 

 reddish chestnut; metatarsal gland white. Spring coat is darker than fall, 

 as fulvous tips of body hair wear off; rump patch is yellow. Summer coat 

 is not seen, but probably nearly uniform deep rusty or bay. 



Measurements of type. Measured in the flesh : Total length, 2,490 ; tail, 80 ; 

 ear (dry), inside from notch to tip, 208, outside from upper base to tip, 225. 

 Skull of type: Basal length, 

 455; orbital width, 219; up- 

 per molar series, 138. Weight 

 of large bull estimated by 

 Forest Ranger Chris Morgan- 

 roth at 1,500 pounds. 



Distribution and abun- 

 dance. Unfortunately 

 there is not a good mu- 

 seum specimen available 

 for comparison of the elk 

 from western Oregon. 

 Several heads and many 

 pairs of horns have been 

 examined in the coast 

 country of Oregon, how- 

 ever, and they appear to 

 be all of this very dark 

 form, with heavy and rel- 

 atively short antlers (fig. 10). There are still considerable numbers 

 of these elk (pi. 20) in the coast ranges from the Columbia to the 

 southern border of the State, and it is to be hoped that good speci- 



4 The name C[ervus] occidentalis Hamilton Smith, in Griffith's Cuvier, Animal King- 

 dom, v. 4, pp. 101-103, and pi. opposite p. 95, 1827 ; and v. 5, p. 308, 1827, was based 

 in part on a drawing and description obtained from a voyageur near Montreal who had 

 " traveled in the fur countries " and had a sketch of an elk with abnormal horns evi- 

 dently combining some of the characters of the mule deer, and in part on 1 of 2 pairs 

 of horns in the British Museum " that there is some reason to believe were brought to 

 England by Captain Vancouver." The drawings of these horns of immature animals 

 merely show small double forks near the tips and no real characters of any species of 

 elk. The description of an animal with tufted tail 5 or 6 inches long could apply onjy 

 to the mule deer and the white markings on chin and ears and inside the legs could 

 have applied to the Rocky Mountain elk, but not to this darkest of our species of elk 

 with no white except a small spot on the metatarsal gland. The statement, apparently 

 from the voyageur, that it resides in the utmost limits of North America beyond the 

 Rocky Mountains and the possibility that the horns in the British Museum may have 

 been brought to England by Captain Vancouver, and if so, may have come from the region 

 of Puget Sound, has led several authors to use this name for the elk of the Olympic 

 Mountains. Even if Vancouver did bring these horns to England, he may have picked 

 them up in California, where another well-marked form of elk occurs, and on the next 

 page (p. 309, v. 5) the statement that the mule deer inhabits the remotest parts of 

 northwestern America, while as a matter of fact it does not go beyond the crest of the 

 Cascade Range or into the country of the Olympic elk, shows how vague the knowledge 

 of geography was at that time. There is so much doubt as to the application of the 

 name occidentalis to the form of elk inhabiting the Olympic Mountains and the coast 

 ranges of western Oregon that it seems unwise to use it instead of a name in current use 

 based on known characters, a good type specimen, and a definite type locality. 



7209 36 6 



FIGURE 10. Range of Rocky Mountain elk and 

 Roosevelt's elk in Oregon : 1, Cervus canadensis 

 nelsoni; 2, C. c. roosevelti. 



