112 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
THE HOG-NOSED SKUNK (CONEPATUS) IN COLORADO 
The middle of December, 1920, Mr. C. E. Aiken of Colorado Springs, Colo- 
rado, showed me the skin and skull of a skunk which had been brought to him 
for mounting, and which was at once recognized as a species of Conepatus, a genus 
hitherto unreported from Colorado. This specimen was taken by Mr. Sam. Kea- 
ton near his ranch on Little Fountain Creek, some twelve miles southwesterly 
from Colorado Springs, at the edge of the foothills. Mr. Keaton has lived on 
this place from his boyhood, since 1873, and while he has trapped Mephitis and 
Spilogale there, he had never before seen a skunk like this, and recognizing it 
as something new, was afraid to shoot it for fear of injuring it too much, there- 
fore threw stones at it, chased it, and finally threw himself down upon the animal 
and strangled it with his hands. This was some time between the first and tenth 
of December, 1920. 
Mr. Aiken, who has kindly consented to my publishing this record, gave me 
permission to send the specimen to the Biological Survey for identification, and 
I received two letters from Mr. E. W. Nelson, chief of the Survey, concerning it. 
In one he remarks that the record from a locality so far north is a very interesting 
and surprising one, the most northern one in the Biological Survey files being 
from the vicinity of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the second letter, written 
a few da 3 ^s later, after the specimen had been compared with material in the 
Biological Survey collection, he states that the animal is a young one, and is 
provisionally referred to Conepatus mesoleucus mearnsi Merriam. 
If the specimen is a young one, and it certainly appears to be small, it would 
seem possible that a litter maj” have been raised in that locality and that there 
may be more there. And this brings up the question as to whether this, or its 
family, if there is a family, is merely a straggler, or whether the hog-nosed skunk 
is extending its range to the northward and until now has escaped notice. The 
locality is somewhere about the boundary between the Transition and Upper 
Sonoran zones. — Edward R. Warren, Colorado Springs, Colo. 
THE ELEPHANT SEAL OFF SANTA CRUZ ISLAND, CALIFORNIA 
I was recently asked to identify a strange creature that had been seen by one 
of the fishermen plying out of the harbor of San Diego. The man stated that his 
boat was about five miles southwest of the south end of Santa Cruz Island when 
he encountered a large school of herring, which were followed by a number of 
whales and the usual school of albicore. As the boat arrived on the scene a 
strangely weird animal appeared from the depths, rearing its head a yard or more 
above the waves, only a hundred feet from the fishermen. After staring at them 
for a moment it sank with a splash and reappeared some hundred yards distant. 
The description was so accurate that there is very little doubt but the animal was 
a large male elephant seal, Mirounga angustirostris. This record would seem to 
give credence to a report that came to me about a year ago, of a seal of this spe- 
cies being shot off Santa Catalina Island. 
Fifty years ago the elephant seal was abundant on the Channel Islands and as 
far south on the Mexican coast as about 26° north lat. Constant persecution 
reduced its numbers, until twenty years later it was considered nearly, if not 
