The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-28

the pnOlOBIapnsr, the HdtuIo loh0A IC gret that the government did not see fit to save these, along with the buffa- 10 and the blghorn.
 There are two species of deer in Cali fornia, both of them gany and full of all that sportsmen demand to make the hunting of them worth all the energy , expended and the antlers are fully val ued as just trophies of an arduous pas time.
 | These are the white tail-the Virginia deer, to be more exact-and the Co., lumbian black tail, one of the best hiders and hardest skulkers of all the | tribe.
 ] The first named of these is a fre- quenter of the higher and more open spaces, while the buacktail likes the shadows of the cool, deep canons of the | highest mountains. It Is practically 1 impossible to get one of these dark colored fellows without Hogs, but white tails are killed by still hunting every season by hundreds up and down the state.
 Deer are the one species of animal which civilization has been unable to drive out of the land they inhabited when white men came. They accus- tom themselves to every change, meet the development of the country and its cutting up into farms by increased skilfulness in avoiding their natural enemy and yet manage to pillage his fields and denude his trees as of old they were wont to feed in the meadows and on the slopes of the wilder noun tains.
 California. too, is the one state where mountain lions still abound in num- bers sufficient to satisfy the most ex- acting of hunters In the mountains of the northern and central portions of the state there are practically as many of these great cats as there ever have been and they are hunted throughout the southwest and hailed as the great est carnivorous game animal of the state-barring, of course, the practical ly extinct grizzly
 No greater sport is to be found any where in the world than the chase of the California lion with we'll trained hounds. It is not an exceptionally brave animal but ranks next to the jaguar of Mexico and the American countries to the south of it in gaminess and those qualities which endear it to the hunter.
 These mountain lions are the greatest enemies the deer of the southwest have. Each year the great cats kill more of the tntlered four feet than all other causes put together. One female lion with a cave full of kittens will be the death of a whole herd of deer in a sin gle season.
 The cats method of hunting os most interesting; it never thinks of following the deer in the open, where speed alone counts, as does the coyote or the wolf of more northern countries. On the contrary the mountain lion Is essential ly a sneaker and a coward. All his hunting, unless absolutely forced out by hunger, is done at night.
 In the darkest hours he will lie along narrow lelge in the driving rain or snow, just above the trail where the deer must pass fr2m their feeding ground to the dense thickets wherein their beds for the day are made. Sim liar huting seats for the lion are to be found at almost every spring, especial Ny those back in the heart of the hills where some kiant tree overhangs the tiny pool of water.
 The leap of the California lion is all mast always rewarded by the fall of the deer, sheep, hog or calf--all of which latter are It's prey in settled sec tions-at which 1t strikes. Unlike the African lion, the American cat does not quit once it fails in a leap on it's vic- tim, but follows it up with tireless vengeance until if wounded the crea- ture lies down Then the cougar waits until his quarry becomes stiff from the cold and rushes to the attack, made doubly easy by the elements.
 But the mountain lion is not the only beast of prey left in the state since the going out of the grizzly Every one who has ever lived east of the Sierra has heard of the famed Canadian lynx, one of the most dreaded hunters of all the eastern and northern states.
 California has a wildcat living among the mountains and the highest hills, which is almost as large as the Cana dian lynx and fully as powerful. This is the gray lynx, so named in contra distinction to the little red or plateau lynx, which is commonly hunted with hounds all over the state.
 Elk were once common in the state, particularly on the great Tulare plain, and there are many of them yet in cap- tivity with possibly Q few in the north eastern part of the state. Certain it is that at one time this deer was the most conspicuous and thoroughly typical of all the animals of the state. On them, no doubt in large degree the grizzlies fed, and they furnished fit food for the mountain lions,
 One must not fail to include in this list also, the mountain goats of old Mount Shasta and the wild hogs of the Colorado bottom lands about the two extremes of California wild life. And all these, 1t must be remembered are only very small portion of the four footed population of California. The smallest mammal in the world, one of the voles, 8 sort of cross between a mouse and a mole, is an inhabitant of the fallow fields of California. Rabbits and squirrels such as we know in the east are here, with the addition of the jaek-rabbit, the biggest rabbit in the world and one of the largest of the TO- dents.
 The biggest bird in the world, the California conilor, is here, as is also the tiniest, the calliope hummlngbird, whose nest is not larger than a wo- mans thimble.