122 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
greatest weight one thousand pounds. The color is a chest- 
hut brown, dark on the head, neck, and legs, lighter and yel- 
lowish on the back and sides. The horns are very large, some- 
times more than four feet long, three feet across from tip to 
tip, measuring three inches in diameter above the burr, and 
weighing, with the skull, exclusive of the lower jaw, forty 
pounds. The horns of the old bucks have from seven to nine, 
perhaps more, prongs, all growing forward, the main stem 
running upward and backward. The elk were very abundant 
in California previous to 1849, and they were frequently seen 
in large herds; but within the last ten years they have become 
rare, and before the close of another decade they will be ex- 
tinct in our state. A few are found in the San Joaquin valley, 
but the best place for hunting them is in Mendocino county. 
Several hundred carcasses find their way every year to the 
San Francisco market. The young fat elk furnishes a very 
juicy and sweet venison. 
The white-tailed Virginian deer, once common in the states 
east of the Mississippi, is not found in California, but in its 
place we have the black-tailed deer (Cervus columbianus), 
which is a little larger and has brighter colors, but does not 
furnish as good venison, the meat lacking the juiciness and 
savory taste of the venison in the Mississippi valley. The av- 
erage weight of the buck is about one hundred and twenty- 
pounds, and of the doe one hundred pounds, but bucks have 
been found to weigh two hundred and seventy-five pounds. 
The summer-coat of the black-tailed deer is composed of rather 
long and coarse hair, of a tawny brown, approaching chestnut 
ou the back. In September this hair begins to come off, expo- 
sing what the bunters call the “blue coat,” which is at first 
fine and silky, and of a bluish-gray color, afterward becoming 
chestnut brown, inclining to gray on the sides, and to black 
along the back. Occasionally deer purely white are found. 
The horn, when long, is about two feet long, and forks near 
mid-length, and each prong forks again, making four points, to 
which a little spur, issuing from near the base of the horn, may 
