46 



COMMON MAMMALS OK WKSTKHN MONTANA. 



white-tailed deer examined during these investigations. There is no 

 reason for removing the protection now granted these animals. 



BEARS. 



Black hears are common in the, mountains in many parts of western 

 Molilalia, and occasionally wander down into the bottom lands or 

 cross from one range of mountains to another. Trappers say that 

 l>ears are usually badly infested with wood ticks, and the author 

 found a number on a brown bear shot near Woodman on June 30, 

 1!>1(). Grizzly bears are much scarcer than black or brown bears and 

 seldom leave the higher parts of the mountains. 



COYOTES. 



Coyotes are rather common throughout most of the western part 

 of the State. Since they destroy sheep and poultry and frequently 

 serve as hosts for adult wood ticks and are wide-ranging animals, 

 it is important that their numbers be reduced as much as possible. 

 This can best be accomplished by trapping, poisoning, and hound- 

 ing. Full directions for destroying wolves and coyotes are given in 

 Circular No. 03 of the Biological Survey. 



SUMMARY. 



Spotted fever is communicated from wild animals to human beings 

 by the bite of infected wood ticks. 



The most feasible ways of controlling the fever are: (1) To edu- 

 cate the inhabitants of infested localities in a belief in the "tick 

 theory;" (2) to lessen the number of wood ticks, by (a) keeping 

 domestic stock, the principal hosts of the adult ticks, tick free 1 and 

 (b) lessening the number of native rodents, the necessary hosts of 

 the younger states of the ticks; and (3) to destroy those native 

 rodents which may serve as a source of continued reinfection of the 

 ticks. 



The destruction of harmful rodents in certain fever-infested parts 

 of western Montana is doubly worth while, for there they not only 

 are very destructive to crops, but are partly — probably fundamen- 

 tally — responsible for the occurrence of the disease. Cooperation 

 by all landowners in a district is essential to the success of any ex- 

 tensive campaign of rodent destruction. Poisons should be pre- 

 pared in bulk by State experiment stations, counties, chambers of 

 commerce, farmers' unions, or other organizations, and then dis- 

 tributed at cost to individuals. 



By the adoption of these common-sense and comparatively sim- 

 ple methods there is every reason to believe that within a few years 

 spotted fever in Montana will be practically a thing of the past. 



1 See Bulletin 105, Bureau of Kntomologry, V. S. Dept. Agriculture, 1911. 

 484 



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