318 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



the gray Canada brant, the white goose ; tlie canvas-back, 

 maUard, sprigtail, spoonbill, and summer ducks; the widgeon, 

 the teal, the English black-breasted, sand, and dowiches snipe; 

 the curlew, the mountain partridge, the valley quail, and vari- 

 ous kinds of grouse. Nobody makes a business of hunting 

 the grizzly bear ; to attack him is so dangerous and to kill him 

 so difficult, that many hunters will not shoot at him even when 

 he comes in their wav. A larg-e number of them, however, 

 are killed every year, and their carcasses are seen in the meat 

 markets of San Francisco at all seasons of the year. The meat 

 resembles pork in its greasiness, but it is coarser in texture 

 and rank in flavor. It nauseates some delicate stomachs. 

 The Spanish-Californians sometimes lasso the bear. When 

 four or five of them, well mounted and provided with good 

 saddles and reatas, surprise a bear in an open plain, they all 

 beset him at once, and while one throws the lasso over his 

 head, another catches him by a hind-leg, and a third by a fore- 

 leg, and then two horses in front, but at a little distance from 

 each other, drag him along, and the third and perhaps a fourth 

 horse follows him, each one keeping his lasso stretched, so that 

 even if the bear should succeed in breaking one reata or slip- 

 ping it oiF, he w^ill still be held fast by several others. He is 

 thus dragged to a pen, where he is kept for a bull-fight or 

 some other amusement. 



It is only a few years since the elk were abundant on the 

 Sacramento and San Joaquin, but they have now disappeared 

 in those places, and are found in small numbers along the 

 northern coast, w'here they will soon be exterminated. The 

 meat resembles that of the deer, but is a little coarser in grain. 

 The elk are shy animals, have a very quick ear, and are more 

 difficult to approach than any other game animal in the state, 

 unless the mountain sheep be excepted. The}^ ordinarily lie 

 hidden in thickets during the middle of the day, and feed 

 about sunrise and. sunset, at which times the hunters seek 

 them. 



The black-tailed deer are good game for the hunter. They 



