562 LORD WALSINGHAM ON NORTH-AMERICAN DEER. [Junel7, 



bianus, and am led to think that they are somewhat less hardy than 

 the other species, and that they retire for the winter down the western 

 slope of the range towards the warmer region of the Willamette 

 valley ; while the others, for the most part, go east towards Crooked 

 River. Indeed the evidence of this, consisting of the tracks of large 

 numbers of Deer which had just gone down on both sides of the 

 summit, was tolerably conclusive. 



On Diamond Peak I first saw a track of Cervus canadensis (the 

 Elk or Wapiti) . 



Both in Oregon and California, as far as I have observed, as well 

 as from information derived from hunters, it appears that all Deer 

 are accustomed to different winter- and summer-quarters, their 

 migrations varying in different localities according to the severity of 

 the season. 



In many places they are known to travel sixty or eighty miles in 

 making these changes ; and very few specimens are to be found during 

 the summer in the districts which afterwards become their winter- 

 quarters ; and scarcely any remain during the winter in the higher 

 elevations to which they betake themselves for the summer months. 



After reaching the junction of the Deschuttes with Crooked River, 

 I followed as nearly as possible the course of the latter to its main 

 source, in the neighbourhood of a range which forms, as it were, a 

 spur or offshoot of the Blue Mountains, and overlooks on the one 

 side the alkaline plains, probably represented on some maps as 

 Spring Valley, and on the opposite side, in the direction of Harney 

 Lake, the site of a deserted military post, formerly called Camp 

 Curry, and the head of Silver Creek ; but all the maps to which I 

 have had access are very incorrect as regards this unsurveyed 

 country. Along the course of Crooked River, C. leucurus in the 

 valleys, and C. macrotis on the hills, with Anti/ocapra americana on 

 the more open plains, were the species met with. C. macrotis 

 was very abundant on the ridge last mentioned, where, for the first 

 time, I noticed that it left the timber, and was to be found in rocky 

 corries on the more open hills, where the only tree was a species of 

 Cupressus. 



On the road between Fort Harney (north of Harnev Lake) and 

 Canon City, on the spurs of the Blue Mountains, at the beginning of 

 November, C. leucurus and C. macrotis were both abundant, travel- 

 ling west in search of winter-quarters ; the former much smaller than 

 those before met with. 



At Camp Watson, in the valley of the middle fork of John Day's 

 River (a deserted military post where I passed the winter), large 

 numbers of G. macrotis were seen during November passing along 

 the timbered mountains in a N.W. direction ; but later in the winter 

 not one was to be found ; and, probably owing to the unusual quan- 

 tity of snow, C. leucurus (again the small variety), which was very 

 abundant early in the winter on the heads of the creeks which run 

 into John Day's River, appeared also to be driven down lower. 



Between Camp Watson and Canon City, on the high open ridges 

 which stand out from the timbered range, Ovis montana frequented 



