9 



URSID.E. 



14. Procyon lotor Storr. (Raccoon.) 

 Common. 



15. Ursus arctos Linn. 1 (Bear.) 



The bear is reported to occur here, but I learned nothing of spec ial 

 interest respecting it. From the character of the country it evi- 

 dently cannot now be common, however numerous it may form- 

 erly have been. Localities named after the bear, as Bear creeks, Bear 

 groves, etc., indicate its former greater or less abundance here. 



CERVID.E. 



16. 'Cervus canadensis Erxl. (American Elk.) 



Formerly numerous, but now extinct in most of the region under 

 description. It is but a few years since good antlers of this species 

 were common on the prairies, but through the combined action of 

 two destroying agencies they are now rarely met with, and only in 

 an imperfect condition. In addition to the injury done them by the 

 fires that annually pass over the wild prairies, the two species of 

 SpermopMus and other rodents eat them, by which animals they are 

 said to be in a short time completely devoured. 



An old resident and hunter whom I met at New Jefferson, in 

 Greene county, informed me that but seven years before (now nine 

 years since), the elk were abundant in some parts of that county. 

 Prior to this date he used to see herds nearly every day, and some- 

 times several in a day, some of them of very large size. During the 

 early settlement of this part of Iowa they were of great value to 

 the settlers, furnishing them with an abundance of excellent food 

 when there was a scarcity of swine and other meat-yielding domestic 

 animals. But, as has been the case too often in the history of the 

 noblest game animals of this continent, they were frequently most 

 ruthlessly and improvidently destroyed. In the severer weather of 

 winter they were often driven to seek shelter and food in the vicinity 

 of the settlements. At such times the people, not satisfied with kill- 



1 In the eighth number of the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

 the writer has shown that it is impossible to satisfactorily characterize or distin- 

 guish more than a single species of land bear in the colder portion of the Northern 

 Hemisphere, though it must be admitted that between the extremes of variation 

 there are very great differences, more than would be required even to indicate a 

 diversity of species, if the differences were constant, as they are most notably not, 

 the most distinct forms gradually intergrading. 



