NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 179 



of British Columbia, and Goldman (1935) has recently distin- 

 guished as Maries pennanti columbiana the animal from the 

 headwaters of Fraser River. The species seems to be absent 

 from Vancouver Island but is found in small numbers in the 

 States of Washington and Oregon, particularly in the national 

 forest reserves. Scheffer (1938), in some recent notes on the 

 species in the State of Washington, says that it occurs in the 

 Cascade and Olympic Mountains and on the Olympic peninsula 

 north to Skagit Valley and Cascade River. In 1937, however, 

 the U. S. Forest Service estimated that the total number in 

 the national forests of Washington was about 230 individuals. 

 In Oregon fishers are found in the cool humid coast ranges, and 

 probably also in the Blue Mountains section (Bailey, 1936), 

 but the number taken for fur seems to be small. Thus in the 

 trapping season of 1913-14, nine fishers were reported to the 

 State Game Commission by registered trappers as taken in 

 Washington. At that time skins were quoted at $25 each, but 

 in 1920-25 the price advanced to as much as $100 to $150 

 apiece! Fewer numbers are found in the northern Rocky 

 Mountain region. Bailey (191$), writing of the mammals of 

 Glacier National Park in Montana, speaks of it as rare, but the 

 few remaining in the park are now, with proper protection, 

 "likely to hold their own" for some time to come. "In many 

 years of trapping in the park region in the early days, Walter S. 

 Gibb has caught three of these animals, but some of the old 

 trappers have not secured a skin. Donald Stevenson reports 

 two skins that were taken by trappers on the Upper Swift cur- 

 rent in 1910, and tracks which he saw on Swan River and 

 South Fork as late as 1912. " Merriam in 1891 reported fishers 

 as already rare in Idaho and mentions a large adult male caught 

 the previous year near Alturas Lake that weighed 10 pounds 2 

 ounces. Formerly at least it extended its range to Wyoming, 

 but no recent report of its presence there is available, nor is 

 there according to Cary (1911) any evidence of its being found 

 in Colorado, although in 1874 it was said to occur (J. A. Allen). 

 Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1937) have given an excellent 

 account of the fisher, its habits and range, as known at the 

 present time in California. It is found still "in the north- 

 western part of the State south from the Oregon line to Lake 

 and Marin Counties and east to and including Mount Shasta; 

 not often in the immediate coastal region (redwood belt) nor, 



