MAMMALS OF MARYLAND 



183 



MOUNTAIN LION 

 Felis concolor Linnaeus 



This species at one time occurred throughout the State, wherever 

 there were white-tailed deer, which served as it principal food. The 

 mountain lion was hunted with relentless energy by settlers and at very 

 early date was exterminated from all but the wildest portions of the 

 western part of the State. The date when the last mountain lion was 

 killed in Maryland is not known, but it was probably sometime toward 

 the end of the 19th century. In the 18th century, the species appears 

 to have been abundant in the mountains of Maryland. Meshach Brown- 

 ing (1928) estimated that he killed more than 50 of them during his 

 active period as a hunter in Garrett County from 1790 to 1836. There 

 is no question that today, however, the species is extinct in Maryland 

 despite the fact that from time to time there are reports of them in 

 some of the more remote portions of the State. None of these recent re- 

 ports of mountain lions in Maryland have ever been verified, and it 

 seems that the species has been extirpated in the entire Eastern United 

 States, with the exception of Florida where a few still persist in the 

 swamps and hammocks in the Everglades. 



WAPITI OR ELK 

 Cervus canadensis (Erxleben) 



This species was at one time statewide in distribution. Mansueti 

 (1950, pp. 11-12) lists a number of early references to it, not only from 

 the mountains of the west, but also in the Tidewater. Its former oc- 

 currence within the State is attested to by the number of places that 

 bear the name "elk." Thus, there is an Elklick Run in Anne Arundel 

 County, Elklick Run in Garrett County, Elk Mills, Elk Neck, Elk 

 River, and Elkton in Cecil County, Elk Mountain and Elkridge in 

 Washington County, Elkridge in Harford County, Elkridge in How- 

 ard County, and Elkridge in Baltimore County. The last of Mary- 

 land's wapiti were apparently exterminated long before the middle 

 of the 19th century. McAtee (1918, p. 52) places the date of their 

 extirpation in Virginia as 1844. 



BISON 

 Bison bison (Linnaeus) 



According to Mansueti (1950, p. 10) the distribution of bison in 

 Maryland and the District of Columbia must have been above the fall 

 line. The bison thus was an inhabitant of the Piedmont, Ridge and 

 Valley, and Allegheny Mountain sections of the State. When the first 

 settlers arrived, however, the species was already becoming scarce, and 



