The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-28
BIG GAME OF CALIFORNIA.
THE HAUNTS OF THE SILVER
 TIPPED GRIzZLY BEAR.


 Beasts of Prey-some Rare Birds.
 There are more game animals in Cal- ifornia than there are in any other state or territory in the Union, says the Son Francisco Chronicle. There are more game birds, in number of species, in the Golden State than in any other part of the American continent north of the Mexican line.
 The largest carnivorous animal which has lived within the memory of man and the most powerful-was once abundant in the sierra of the west coast. Even yet there are a few of its kind to be found in the remote hills.
 The tiniest animal of the world and the smallest bird in the world are found here, along with the largest bird.
 In the winter the biggest game bird, the great trumpeter swan, comes south to luxuriate in the swamps of the sun land; along the coast at the same time move the smallest of game birds, the tiny sandpiper, which sweep in clouds across the sands and which fall by doz- ems at a single discharge of the sports mans double barrel.
 To those who are accustomed to tales of hunters returned from Asia, Africa and Newfoundland or even from the tangled mountains which lie a few miles to the north of this state, these may seem strange statements, but they are all facts, and men who have hunt ed the sierra and the foothills of the seashore all bear them out.
 Three animals there are in the Uni ted States which California lacks to make her faunal roster completely rep 'resentative of the entire continent north of the big republic on the south
 These three are the buffalo, which is to be found in scattered parks through out the Golden State; the moose, which probably has never existed here, and the rare blue swamp bear of the Louis- jana canebreaks.
 The lion is often referred to as the king of beasts. With him the elephant disputes the throne, and to a less de- gree so does the royal Bengal tiger of the Bengali hills. But there has lived in numbers in California, and even now is found in restricted localities, an ami nal which in single fight could, with out the remotest doubt, whip either one of these with surprising ease.
 This is none other than the real silver tip. Some claim that it is doubtful if any grizzly of the simon pure brand has ever been taken alive, much less seen in captivity. Few hunters have ever come within eight of one, and none but the oldest of the men who made California their Ultima Thule ir the days of 49 can truthfully boast oi having slain one of these monsters.
 Truth to tell the period of greatest plenty of the grizzly bear in the United States passed long before white men came to the west coast, according tC the oldest and most experienced hunt CTS in the land which lies from the Rockies to the Pacific ocean. Now they are practically conceded, both by hunters and by naturalists, that there are still few of the gray bears con cealed in the highest parts of the sier' ra, where men seldom penetrate.
 Of Cinnamon and black bears, two varieties of the same species, the browr bear of the books, there are yet many in the foothills, even though they toe are rapidly slipping away. In south ern California there are very few bear! of any sort, certainly no grizzlies.
 Down along the Colorado river in thI low and swarnpy lands we'll grown LII with thick timber, there are said b! hunters to be few of the uncommon Mexican black bears, a species serdon if ever seen by American sportsmen even when they invade it's native haunts in Mexico.
 In addition to the great abundance O animals and birds of the Golden Stat, it has, in the most barren of it's peak and in the heart of its desert region the rarest game animal in North Amer lea, if not in the new world. It com pares with the black rhinoceros of Ar rlca, the white letopard of Tibet an. the taplr of South Africa.
 This is the famed Bighorn mountain sheep. A few of its kind are still to b found in Rocky Mountain fastnesses with the white goats of the Selkirks but by far the greater number remain ing in the United States are to .bt l found in the mountain ranges of tn, desert, from Mono and Owens Lak down to the Mexican line. Hundred of these great sheep are killed by thu Indians of the regions they inhabit ev cry winter, and their numbers are al minishing at such a rapid rate that i is only question of very few year until they will have disappeared alto i gether.
 1 A penalty of five hundred dollars O whereabouts is imposed for the killing of a bighorn, but this does not seem t, deter their annual slaughter.
 Down in the mountain fastnesse along the Colorado river the big sheeI are about as plentiful as they eve have been; but further north there ar more of their skulls in the Indian vii Iages than on the shoulders of the an imals themselves. Heads worth thou sands of dollars are scattered, mer, whitening piles of bone and horn, ul and down every desert trail lea1inf 1 from the lava buttes and the sand stone hills to the towns of the tribes men.
 Once more plentiful than deer, nov so scarce that it is doubtful if an! hunter of this generation has ever seer one in a wild state on the coast, ar the famous pronghorn, the antelope O America Tn Colorado, in Wyoming possibly in South Dokota, there are { few bands of these agile creatures ye remaining to delight the eye on tn vast plains, but for the most part the, have followed the buffalo into oblivion Compared with the mountain sheel nn +l, ,.n rit,r a n,,,nnot 4hn arir,nnle nf tl,l