NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 193 



imperceptible degrees with that of the typical form in Utah 

 and Idaho. Although formerly the range was more extensive, 

 over the higher parts of the California mountains, it has, since 

 at least about 1900, become restricted to the central and 

 southern Sierra Nevada above 8,000 feet "from the vicinity of 

 Lake Tahoe south through the Mount Whitney region" to 

 Kern County. Though the altitudinal range varies from 5,000 

 to 13,000 feet, the animals are most frequent at about timber- 

 line. Probably this restricted range has resulted in making 

 the population of Californian wolverenes never very large. 

 The first to mention the species in this State was Cooper, 

 who in 1868 wrote that at that time a few were killed every 

 winter in the northern Sierras. There is some evidence, ad- 

 duced by the above authors, that in the middle of the last 

 century wolverenes occurred in the coastal mountains of Marin 

 and Sonoma Counties, but no specimens are extant. Slightly 

 farther north, however, these animals seem to have occurred 

 down to about 1873, as on the higher peaks of Mount San- 

 hedrin, Mount Linn, and Yolla Bolly. Merriam is quoted 

 concerning a specimen killed ^Jbout 1893 between Mounts 

 Shasta and Lassen. 



At the present time there are probably few wolverenes left in 

 California. "From 1920 through 1924, the average number 

 reported captured by the trappers of California was less than 

 three a year. After considering all the available data, the 

 authors [Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale, 1937] believe that at 

 the present time (1933) there are at most not more than 15 

 pairs of wolverenes left in the State. This animal is thus one 

 of the rarest furbearers now living in California." "At present 

 the main hope" of protecting the species from extinction 

 within the State is its preservation within the guarded areas of 

 Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, but the animals are 

 likely at times to wander outside the limits of these areas and 

 are caught or killed by trappers who may legally take fur out- 

 side the park boundaries. 



How far north the characters of the southern wolverene may 

 hold is tentatively intimated by the above authors as perhaps 

 extending to the State of Washington. Bailey, in 1936, be- 

 lieved that they are not yet extinct in the Cascades and 

 Sierra Nevada and mentions one taken in the upper McKenzie 

 Valley west of the Three Sisters Peaks, Oregon, in 1912; how- 



