318 RESOURCES UF CALIFORNIA. 
the gray Canada brant, the white goose; tle canvas-back, 
mallard, sprigtail, spoonbill, and summer ducks , the widgeon, 
the teal, the English black-breasted, sand, and jowiches snipe ; 
the curlew, the mountain partridge, the vallzy quail, and vari- 
ous kinds of grouse. Nobody makes a business of hunting 
the grizzly bear; to attack him is so dangerous and to kill him 
so difficult, that many hunters will not shoot at him even when 
he comes in their way. A large number of them, however, 
are killed every year, and their carcasses are seen in the meat 
markets of San Francisco at all seasons of the year. The meat 
resembles pork in its gyeasiness, but it is coarser in texture 
and rank in flavor. It nauseates some delicate stomachs. 
The Spanish-Californians sometimes lasso the bear. When 
four or five of them, well mounted and provided with good 
saddles and reatas, surprise a bear in an open plain, they all 
beset him at once, and while one throws the lasso over his 
head, another catches him by a hind-leg, and a third by a fore- 
leg, and then two horses in front, but at a little distance from 
each other, drag him along, and the third and perhaps a fourth 
horse follows him, each one keeping his lasso stretched, so that 
even if the bear should succeed in breaking one reata or slip- 
ping it off, he will still be held fast by several others. He is 
thus dragged to a pen, where he is kept for a bull-fight or 
some other amusement. 
It is only a few years since the elk were abundant on the 
Sacramento and San Joaquin, but they have now disappeared 
in those places, and are found in small numbers along the 
northern coast, where they will soon be exterminated. The 
meat resembles that of the deer, but is a little coarser in grain. 
The elk are shy animals, have a very quick ear, and are more 
difficult to approach than any other game animal in the state, 
unless the mountain sheep be excepted. They ordinarily lie 
hidden in thickets during the middle of the day, and feed 
about sunrise and sunset, at which times the hunters seck 
them. 
The black-tailed deer are good game for the hunter. They 
