1904.] Allen, Mammals from Alaska. 275 



just beginning to feel the effects of spring. The long grass 

 that covers the hills was dead and matted down. The alders, 

 which form almost the only ligneous vegetation, were just 

 beginning to show their leaf buds. At Muller Bay, which we 

 reached on May 22, conditions were much the same; but 

 before we left there on June 13, new grass was beginning to 

 show beneath the old, and the alders were in blossom." 



Seldovia, June 26-August 3. Seldovia is near the south- 

 western point of the Kenai Peninsula. " Here the hills are 

 forested with spruce, with here and there a small grove of 

 poplars. The woods are open in but few places, there being 

 for the most part an undergrowth of alder bushes, devil club, 

 salmonberry, and other plants that are less conspicuous." 



Sheep Camp, Sheep Creek, August. At " our upper camp on 

 Sheep Creek, I found conditions somewhat different from 

 those existing at Seldovia. The woods here are decidedly 

 mixed; poplars and birches intermingle with spruces, and in 

 the bottomland of Sheep Creek, as well as on the hillsides, 

 there are large patches of alder bushes and willows." 



Caribou Camp, September 3-9. This camp was at timber- 

 line, and " the bare hilltops and grassy hillsides afforded a 

 new kind of field for trapping. ... In ascending the 

 mountains above timberline, one passes through a belt of 

 alders and comes out upon a comparatively level, very open 

 country, which rises gradually and finally merges into .the 

 actual mountains. This 'level' country is cut up into little 

 hills and hollows. The hilltops are covered with a dense 

 mat of vegetation composed largely of ' spruceberry ' (black 

 crowberry) bushes, cranberry and blueberry bushes, and sev- 

 eral forms of moss and lichen. The hollows and valleys have 

 deeper soil, with grass and various other herbaceous plants." 



Moose Camp, September 25~October 8. Also at timber- 

 line. " Here, where the spruce forest ends, a region of tall 

 grass and patches of alders begins." 



The fauna of the western end of the Alaska Peninsula is of 

 course very different from that of the Kenai Peninsula, only 

 three of the species found near Muller Bay being taken on 



