classed under the name yack-ah, and were said to resemble each other in
being smaller and having shorter nails, in climbing trees, and being so
little vicious that they could be pursued with safety.

Lewis and Clark came to the conclusion that all those with white-tipped
hair found by them in the basin of the Columbia belonged to the same
species as the grizzlies of the upper Missouri; and that the black and
reddish-brown, etc., of the Rocky Mountains belong to a second species
equally distinct from the grizzly and the black bear of the Pacific
Coast and the East, which never vary in color.

As much as possible should be made by the ordinary traveler of these
descriptions, for he will be likely to see very little of any species
for himself; not that bears no longer exist here, but because, being
shy, they keep out of the way. In order to see them and learn their
habits one must go softly and alone, lingering long in the fringing
woods on the banks of the salmon streams, and in the small openings in
the midst of thickets where berries are most abundant.

As for rattlesnakes, the other grand dread of town dwellers when they
leave beaten roads, there are two, or perhaps three, species of them in
Oregon. But they are nowhere to be found in great numbers. In western
Oregon they are hardly known at all. In all my walks in the Oregon
forest I have never met a single specimen, though a few have been seen
at long intervals.

When the country was first settled by the whites, fifty years ago, the
elk roamed through the woods and over the plains to the east of
the Cascades in immense numbers; now they are rarely seen except by
experienced hunters who know their haunts in the deepest and most
inaccessible solitudes to which they have been driven. So majestic
an animal forms a tempting mark for the sportsman's rifle. Countless
thousands have been killed for mere amusement and they already seem to
be nearing extinction as rapidly as the buffalo. The antelope also is
vanishing from the Columbia plains before the farmers and cattlemen.
Whether the moose still lingers in Oregon or Washington I am unable to
say.

On the highest mountains of the Cascade Range the wild goat roams in
comparative security, few of his enemies caring to go so far in pursuit
and to hunt on ground so high and dangerous. He is a brave, sturdy
shaggy mountaineer of an animal, enjoying the freedom and security of
crumbling ridges and overhanging cliffs above th