CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 89 



The introduction advises that man is included in the list because he 

 came into the State voluntarily. Domestic mammals are not included 

 because man brought them in. On this basis, wild horses, which 

 entered eastern California voluntarily, should be included and the 

 Virginia opossum should be excluded from the list because man intro- 

 duced it. 



The order Rodentia follows the order Primates in which man 

 is classified. Among the order Rodentia, marmots, ground squirrels, 

 chipmunks, chickarees, gray squirrels, flying squirrels, gophers, mice 

 and rats are treated. Sportsmen will marvel at the fact that no less 

 than 37 different kinds of gophers are ascribed to California, 31 kinds 

 of pocket mice and 34 kinds of kangaroo rats. 



The beaver and muskrat are members of the order Rodentia and 

 three kinds of beaver are ascribed to California, the golden beaver 

 which inhabits the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, the Shasta 

 beaver of the Pit River basin of northeastern California, and the 

 Sonora beaver of the Colorado River and Imperial Valley. Two sub- 

 species of muskrat inhabit California, the Nevada muskrat, which is 

 native to the larger streams and lakes tributary to the Great Basin 

 along the extreme eastern border of the State from Eagle Lake south 

 to Mono County. Curiously, this rodent appears never to have been 

 native in the basin of the Pit River. The Colorado River muskrat is 

 indigenous to that river and since 1911 has spread into irrigation canals 

 throughout the Imperial Valley. 



The porcupine and coneys are included in the order Rodentia. 

 The following rabbits are ascribed to California: two kinds of white- 

 tailed jack rabbit, or Sierra hare, two varieties of snowshoe rabbit, 

 five kinds of jack rabbits, six cottontails, four brush rabbits and the 

 Idaho pigmy rabbit of the Great Basin region. 



Sportsmen will no doubt take greatest interest in the classifica- 

 tion of the elk, deer, antelope, bison and mountain sheep which are 

 members of the order Artiodactyla. Two elk, the Roosevelt and dwarf, 

 or tule, elk are native to this State. The former ranged from Marin 

 County north through the coastal belt to the Oregon line and at the 

 present day exists only in small numbers in Del Norte and northern 

 Humboldt counties. The dwarf elk formerly occupied nearly the entire 

 San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys and occurred in the southern 

 coast ranges in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Monterey and Santa 

 Clara counties. It has now been reduced to a herd of approximately 

 140 animals on the State elk refuge near Buttonwillow, Kern County, 

 and several smaller herds that have been transplanted from this point. 

 The eastern, or Canada, elk has been planted in California, and a small 

 herd appears to be thriving in Shasta County and a lesser luimber of 

 animals in Lassen County. 



Two subspecies of black-tailed deer occur in California. The 

 Columbian black-tailed deer ranges south from the Oregon line, from 

 the coast east to the Sacramento Valley, south to the north side of San 

 Francisco Bay. Grinnell states that this subspecies also occurs south- 

 east along the Sierra to both sides of Mt. Shasta and Lassen Peak, 

 at least south to the lower Feather River region on the west flank of 

 the Sierra Nevada. The reviewer believes that more intensive study 

 of the deer population of the western flank of the Sierra will show that 



