Among the Animals of the Yosemite
The Sierra bear, brown or gray, the sequoia of the animals, tramps over
all the park, though few travelers have the pleasure of seeing him. On
he fares through the majestic forests and cañons, facing all sorts of
weather, rejoicing in his strength, everywhere at home, harmonizing
with the trees and rocks and shaggy chaparral. Happy fellow! his lines
have fallen in pleasant places,—lily gardens in silver-fir forests,
miles of bushes in endless variety and exuberance of bloom over
hill-waves and valleys and along the banks of streams, cañons full of
music and waterfalls, parks fair as Eden,—places in which one might
expect to meet angels rather than bears.
In this happy land no famine comes nigh him. All the year round his
bread is sure, for some of the thousand kinds that he likes are always
in season and accessible, ranged on the shelves of the mountains like
stores in a pantry. From one to another, from climate to climate, up
and down he climbs, feasting on each in turn,—enjoying as great variety
as if he traveled to far-off countries north and south. To him almost
every thing is food except granite. Every tree helps to feed him, every
bush and herb, with fruits and flowers, leaves and bark; and all the
animals he can catch,—badgers, gophers, ground squirrels, lizards,
snakes, etc., and ants, bees, wasps, old and young, together with their
eggs and larvæ and nests. Craunched and hashed, down all go to his
marvelous stomach, and vanish as if cast into a fire. What digestion! A
sheep or a wounded deer or a pig he eats warm, about as quickly as a
boy eats a buttered muffin; or should the meat be a month old, it still
is welcomed with tremendous relish. After so gross a meal as this,
perhaps the next will be strawberries and clover, or raspberries with
mushrooms and nuts, or puckery acorns and chokecherries. And as if
fearing that anything eatable in all his dominions should escape being
eaten, he breaks into cabins to look after sugar, dried apples, bacon,
etc. Occasionally he eats the mountaineer’s bed; but when he has had a
full meal of more tempting dainties he usually leaves it undisturbed,
though he has been known to drag it up through a hole in the roof,
carry it to the foot of a tree, and lie down on it to enjoy a siesta.
Eating everything, never is he himself eaten except by man, and only
man is an enemy to be feared. “B’ar meat,” said a hunter from whom I
was seeking information, “b’ar meat is the best meat in the mountains;
their skins make the best beds, and their grease the best butter.
Biscuit shortened with b’ar grease goes as far as beans; a man will
walk all day on a couple of them biscuit.”
In my first interview with a Sierra bear we were frightened and
embarrassed, both of us, but the bear’s behavior was better than mine.
When I discovered him, he was standing in a narrow strip of meadow, and
I was concealed behind a tree on the side of it. After studying this
appearance as he stood at rest, I rushed toward him to frighten him,
that I might study his gait in running. But, contrary to all I had
heard about the shyness of bears, he did not run at all; and when I
stopped short within a few steps of him, as he held his ground in a
fighting attitude, my mistake was monstrously plain. I was then put on
my good behavior, and never afterward forgot the right manners of the
wilderness.
This happened on my first Sierra excursion in the forest to the north
of Yosemite Valley. I was eager to meet the animals, and many of them
came to me as if willing to show themselves and make my acquaintance;
but the bears kept out of my way.
An old mountaineer, in reply to my questions, told me that bears were
very shy, all save grim old grizzlies, and that I might travel the
mountains for years without seeing one, unless I gave my mind to them
and practiced the stealthy ways of hunters. Nevertheless, it was only a
few weeks after I had received this information that I met the one
mentioned above, and obtained instruction at first-hand.
I was encamped in the woods about a mile back of the rim of Yosemite,
beside a stream that falls into the valley by the way of Indian Cañon.
Nearly every day for weeks I went to the top of the North Dome to
sketch; for it commands a general view of the valley, and I was anxious
to draw every tree and rock and waterfall. Carlo, a St. Bernard dog,
was my companion,—a fine, intelligent fellow that belonged to a hunter
who was compelled to remain all summer on the hot plains, and who
loaned him to me for the season for the sake of having him in the
mountains, where he would be so much better off. Carlo knew bears
through long experience, and he it was who led me to my first
interview, though he seemed as much surprised as the bear at my
unhunter-like behavior. One morning in June, just as the sunbeams began
to stream through the trees, I set out for a day’s sketching on the
dome; and before we had gone half a mile from camp Carlo snuffed the
air and looked cautiously ahead, lowered his bushy tail, drooped his
ears, and began to step softly like a cat, turning every few yards and
looking me in the face with a telling expression, saying plainly
enough, “There is a bear a little way ahead.” I walked carefully in the
indicated direction, until I approached a small flowery meadow that I
was familiar with, then crawled to the foot of a tree on its margin,
bearing in mind what I had been told about the shyness of bears.
Looking out cautiously over the instep of the tree, I saw a big, burly
cinnamon bear about thirty yards off, half erect, his paws resting on
the trunk of a fir that had fallen into the meadow, his hips almost
buried in grass and flowers. He was listening attentively and trying to
catch the scent, showing that in some way he was aware of our approach.
I watched his gestures, and tried to make the most of my opportunity to
learn what I could about him, fearing he would not stay long. He made a
fine picture, standing alert in the sunny garden walled in by the most
beautiful firs in the world.
[Illustration: A Cinnamon Bear.]
After examining him at leisure, noting the sharp muzzle thrust
inquiringly forward, the long shaggy hair on his broad chest, the stiff
ears nearly buried in hair, and the slow, heavy way in which he moved
his head, I foolishly made a rush on him, throwing up my arms and
shouting to frighten him, to see him run. He did not mind the
demonstration much; only pushed his head farther forward, and looked at
me sharply as if asking, “What now? If you want to fight, I’m ready.”
Then I began to fear that on me would fall the work of running. But I
was afraid to run, lest he should be encouraged to pursue me; therefore
I held my ground, staring him in the face within a dozen yards or so,
putting on as bold a look as I could, and hoping the influence of the
human eye would be as great as it is said to be. Under these strained
relations the interview seemed to last a long time. Finally, the bear,
seeing how still I was, calmly withdrew his huge paws from the log,
gave me a piercing look, as if warning me not to follow him, turned,
and walked slowly up the middle of the meadow into the forest; stopping
every few steps and looking back to make sure that I was not trying to
take him at a disadvantage in a rear attack. I was glad to part with
him, and greatly enjoyed the vanishing view as he waded through the
lilies and columbines.
Thenceforth I always tried to give bears respectful notice of my
approach, and they usually kept well out of my way. Though they often
came around my camp in the night, only once afterward, as far as I
know, was I very near one of them in daylight. This time it was a
grizzly I met; and as luck would have it, I was even nearer to him than
I had been to the big cinnamon. Though not a large specimen, he seemed
formidable enough at a distance of less than a dozen yards. His shaggy
coat was well grizzled, his head almost white. When I first caught
sight of him he was eating acorns under a Kellogg oak, at a distance of
perhaps seventy-five yards, and I tried to slip past without disturbing
him. But he had either heard my steps on the gravel or caught my scent,
for he came straight toward me, stopping every rod or so to look and
listen: and as I was afraid to be seen running, I crawled on my hands
and knees a little way to one side and hid behind a libocedrus, hoping
he would pass me unnoticed. He soon came up opposite me, and stood
looking ahead, while I looked at him, peering past the bulging trunk of
the tree. At last, turning his head, he caught sight of mine, stared
sharply a minute or two, and then, with fine dignity, disappeared in a
manzanita-covered earthquake talus.
Considering how heavy and broad-footed bears are, it is wonderful how
little harm they do in the wilderness. Even in the well-watered gardens
of the middle region, where the flowers grow tallest, and where during
warm weather the bears wallow and roll, no evidence of destruction is
visible. On the contrary, under nature’s direction, the massive beasts
act as gardeners. On the forest floor, carpeted with needles and brush,
and on the tough sod of glacier meadows, bears make no mark; but around
the sandy margin of lakes their magnificent tracks form grand lines of
embroidery. Their well-worn trails extend along the main cañons on
either side, and though dusty in some places make no scar on the
landscape. They bite and break off the branches of some of the pines
and oaks to get the nuts, but this pruning is so light that few
mountaineers ever notice it; and though they interfere with the orderly
lichen-veiled decay of fallen trees, tearing them to pieces to reach
the colonies of ants that inhabit them, the scattered ruins are quickly
pressed back into harmony by snow and rain and over-leaning vegetation.
The number of bears that make the Park their home may be guessed by the
number that have been killed by the two best hunters, Duncan and old
David Brown. Duncan began to be known as a bear-killer about the year
1865. He was then roaming the woods, hunting and prospecting on the
south fork of the Merced. A friend told me that he killed his first
bear near his cabin at Wawona; that after mustering courage to fire he
fled, without waiting to learn the effect of his shot. Going back in a
few hours he found poor Bruin dead, and gained courage to try again.
Duncan confessed to me, when we made an excursion together in 1875,
that he was at first mortally afraid of bears, but after killing a half
dozen he began to keep count of his victims, and became ambitious to be
known as a great bear-hunter. In nine years he had killed forty-nine,
keeping count by notches cut on one of the timbers of his cabin on the
shore of Crescent Lake, near the south boundary of the Park. He said
the more he knew about bears, the more he respected them and the less
he feared them. But at the same time he grew more and more cautious,
and never fired until he had every advantage, no matter how long he had
to wait and how far he had to go before he got the bear just right as
to the direction of the wind, the distance, and the way of escape in
case of accident; making allowance also for the character of the
animal, old or young, cinnamon or grizzly. For old grizzlies, he said,
he had no use whatever, and he was mighty careful to avoid their
acquaintance. He wanted to kill an even hundred; then he was going to
confine himself to safer game. There was not much money in bears,
anyhow, and a round hundred was enough for glory.
I have not seen or heard of him lately, and do not know how his bloody
count stands. On my excursions, I occasionally passed his cabin. It was
full of meat and skins hung in bundles from the rafters, and the ground
about it was strewn with bones and hair,—infinitely less tidy than a
bear’s den. He went as hunter and guide with a geological survey party
for a year or two, and was very proud of the scientific knowledge, he
picked up. His admiring fellow mountaineers, he said, gave him credit
for knowing not only the botanical names of all the trees and bushes,
but also the “botanical names of the bears.”
The most famous hunter of the region was David Brown, an old pioneer,
who early in the gold period established his main camp in a little
forest glade on the north fork of the Merced, which is still called
“Brown’s Flat.” No finer solitude for a hunter and prospector could be
found; the climate is delightful all the year, and the scenery of both
earth and sky is a perpetual feast. Though he was not much of a
“scenery fellow,” his friends say that he knew a pretty place when he
saw it as well as any one, and liked mightily to get on the top of a
commanding ridge to “look off.”
When out of provisions, he would take down his old-fashioned
long-barreled rifle from its deer-horn rest over the fireplace and set
out in search of game. Seldom did he have to go far for venison,
because the deer liked the wooded slopes of Pilot Peak ridge, with its
open spots where they could rest and look about them, and enjoy the
breeze from the sea in warm weather, free from troublesome flies, while
they found hiding-places and fine aromatic food in the deer-brush
chaparral. A small, wise dog was his only companion, and well the
little mountaineer understood the object of every hunt, whether deer or
bears, or only grouse hidden in the fir-tops. In deer-hunting Sandy had
little to do, trotting behind his master as he walked noiselessly
through the fragrant woods, careful not to step heavily on dry twigs,
scanning open spots in the chaparral where the deer feed in the early
morning and toward sunset, peering over ridges and swells as new
outlooks were reached, and along alder and willow fringed flats and
streams, until he found a young buck, killed it, tied its legs
together, threw it on his shoulder, and so back to camp. But when bears
were hunted, Sandy played an important part as leader, and several
times saved his master’s life; and it was as a bear-hunter that David
Brown became famous. His method, as I had it from a friend who had
passed many an evening in his cabin listening to his long stories of
adventure, was simply to take a few pounds of flour and his rifle, and
go slowly and silently over hill and valley in the loneliest part of
the wilderness, until little Sandy came upon the fresh track of a bear,
then follow it to the death, paying no heed to time. Wherever the bear
went he went, however rough the ground, led by Sandy, who looked back
from time to time to see how his master was coming on, and regulated
his pace accordingly, never growing weary or allowing any other track
to divert him. When high ground was reached a halt was made, to scan
the openings in every direction, and perchance Bruin would be
discovered sitting upright on his haunches, eating manzanita berries;
pulling down the fruit-laden branches with his paws and pressing them
together, so as to get substantial mouthfuls, however mixed with leaves
and twigs. The time of year enabled the hunter to determine
approximately where the game would be found: in spring and early
summer, in lush grass and clover meadows and in berry tangles along the
banks of streams, or on pea-vine and lupine clad slopes; in late summer
and autumn, beneath the pines, eating the cones cut off by the
squirrels, and in oak groves at the bottom of cañons, munching acorns,
manzanita berries, and cherries; and after snow had fallen, in alluvial
bottoms, feeding on ants and yellow-jacket wasps. These food places
were always cautiously approached, so as to avoid the chance of sudden
encounters.
“Whenever,” said the hunter, “I saw a bear before he saw me, I had no
trouble in killing him. I just took lots of time to learn what he was
up to and how long he would be likely to stay, and to study the
direction of the wind and the lay of the land. Then I worked round to
leeward of him, no matter how far I had to go; crawled and dodged to
within a hundred yards, near the foot of a tree that I could climb, but
which was too small for a bear to climb. There I looked well to the
priming of my rifle, took off my boots so as to climb quickly if
necessary, and, with my rifle in rest and Sandy behind me, waited until
my bear stood right, when I made a sure, or at least a good shot back
of the fore leg. In case he showed fight, I got up the tree I had in
mind, before he could reach me. But bears are slow and awkward with
their eyes, and being to windward they could not scent me, and often I
got in a second shot before they saw the smoke. Usually, however, they
tried to get away when they were hurt, and I let them go a good safe
while before I ventured into the brush after them. Then Sandy was
pretty sure to find them dead; if not, he barked bold as a lion to draw
attention, or rushed in and nipped them behind, enabling me to get to a
safe distance and watch a chance for a finishing shot.
“Oh yes, bear-hunting is a mighty interesting business, and safe enough
if followed just right, though, like every other business, especially
the wild kind, it has its accidents, and Sandy and I have had close
calls at times. Bears are nobody’s fools, and they know enough to let
men alone as a general thing, unless they are wounded, or cornered, or
have cubs. In my opinion, a hungry old mother would catch and eat a
man, if she could; which is only fair play, anyhow, for we eat them.
But nobody, as far as I know, has been eaten up in these rich
mountains. Why they never tackle a fellow when he is lying asleep I
never could understand. They could gobble us mighty handy, but I
suppose it’s nature to respect a sleeping man.”
Sheep-owners and their shepherds have killed a great many bears, mostly
by poison and traps of various sorts. Bears are fond of mutton, and
levy heavy toll on every flock driven into the mountains. They usually
come to the corral at night, climb in, kill a sheep with a stroke of
the paw, carry it off a little distance, eat about half of it, and
return the next night for the other half; and so on all summer, or
until they are themselves killed. It is not, however, by direct
killing, but by suffocation through crowding against the corral wall in
fright, that the greatest losses are incurred. From ten to fifteen
sheep are found dead, smothered in the corral, after every attack; or
the walls are broken, and the flock is scattered far and wide. A flock
may escape the attention of these marauders for a week or two in the
spring; but after their first taste of the fine mountain-fed meat the
visits are persistently kept up, in spite of all precautions. Once I
spent a night with two Portuguese shepherds, who were greatly troubled
with bears, from two to four or five visiting them almost every night.
Their camp was near the middle of the Park, and the wicked bears, they
said, were getting worse and worse. Not waiting now until dark, they
came out of the brush in broad daylight, and boldly carried off as many
sheep as they liked. One evening, before sundown, a bear, followed by
two cubs, came for an early supper, as the flock was being slowly
driven toward the camp. Joe, the elder of the shepherds, warned by many
exciting experiences, promptly climbed a tall tamarack pine, and left
the freebooters to help themselves; while Antone, calling him a coward,
and declaring that he was not going to let bears eat up his sheep
before his face, set the dogs on them, and rushed toward them with a
great noise and a stick. The frightened cubs ran up a tree, and the
mother ran to meet the shepherd and dogs. Antone stood astonished for a
moment, eying the oncoming bear; then fled faster than Joe had, closely
pursued. He scrambled to the roof of their little cabin, the only
refuge quickly available; and fortunately, the bear, anxious about her
young, did not climb after him,—only held him in mortal terror a few
minutes, glaring and threatening, then hastened back to her cubs,
called them down, went to the frightened, huddled flock, killed a
sheep, and feasted in peace. Antone piteously entreated cautious Joe to
show him a good safe tree, up which he climbed like a sailor climbing a
mast, and held on as long as he could with legs crossed, the slim pine
recommended by Joe being nearly branchless. “So you, too, are a bear
coward as well as Joe,” I said, after hearing the story. “Oh, I tell
you,” he replied, with grand solemnity, “bear face close by look awful;
she just as soon eat me as not. She do so as eef all my sheeps b’long
every one to her own self. I run to bear no more. I take tree every
time.”
After this the shepherds corraled the flock about an hour before
sundown, chopped large quantities of dry wood and made a circle of
fires around the corral every night, and one with a gun kept watch on a
stage built in a pine by the side of the cabin, while the other slept.
But after the first night or two this fire fence did no good, for the
robbers seemed to regard the light as an advantage, after becoming used
to it.
On the night I spent at their camp the show made by the wall of fire
when it was blazing in its prime was magnificent,—the illumined trees
around about relieved against solid darkness, and the two thousand
sheep lying down in one gray mass, sprinkled with gloriously brilliant
gems, the effect of the firelight in their eyes. It was nearly midnight
when a pair of the freebooters arrived. They walked boldly through a
gap in the fire circle, killed two sheep, carried them out, and
vanished in the dark woods, leaving ten dead in a pile, trampled down
and smothered against the corral fence; while the scared watcher in the
tree did not fire a single shot, saying he was afraid he would hit some
of the sheep, as the bears got among them before he could get a good
sight.
In the morning I asked the shepherds why they did not move the flock to
a new pasture. “Oh, no use!” cried Antone. “Look my dead sheeps. We
move three four time before, all the same bear come by the track. No
use. To-morrow we go home below. Look my dead sheeps. Soon all dead.”
Thus were they driven out of the mountains more than a month before the
usual time. After Uncle Sam’s soldiers, bears are the most effective
forest police, but some of the shepherds are very successful in killing
them. Altogether, by hunters, mountaineers, Indians, and sheepmen,
probably five or six hundred have been killed within the bounds of the
Park, during the last thirty years. But they are not in danger of
extinction. Now that the Park is guarded by soldiers, not only has the
vegetation in great part come back to the desolate ground, but all the
wild animals are increasing in numbers. No guns are allowed in the Park
except under certain restrictions, and after a permit has been obtained
from the officer in charge. This has stopped the barbarous slaughter of
bears, and especially of deer, by shepherds, hunters, and hunting
tourists, who, it would seem, can find no pleasure without blood.
The Sierra deer—the blacktail—spend the winters in the brushy and
exceedingly rough region just below the main timber-belt, and are less
accessible to hunters there than when they are passing through the
comparatively open forests to and from their summer pastures near the
summits of the range. They go up the mountains early in the spring as
the snow melts, not waiting for it all to disappear; reaching the high
Sierra about the first of June, and the coolest recesses at the base of
the peaks a month or so later. I have tracked them for miles over
compacted snow from three to ten feet deep.
Deer are capital mountaineers, making their way into the heart of the
roughest mountains; seeking not only pasturage, but a cool climate, and
safe hidden places in which to bring forth their young. They are not
supreme as rock-climbing animals; they take second rank, yielding the
first to the mountain sheep, which dwell above them on the highest
crags and peaks. Still, the two meet frequently; for the deer climbs
all the peaks save the lofty summits above the glaciers, crossing piles
of angular boulders, roaring swollen streams, and sheer-walled cañons
by fords and passes that would try the nerves of the hardiest
mountaineers,—climbing with graceful ease and reserve of strength that
cannot fail to arouse admiration. Everywhere some species of deer seems
to be at home,—on rough or smooth ground, lowlands or highlands, in
swamps and barrens and the densest woods, in varying climates, hot or
cold, over all the continent; maintaining glorious health, never making
an awkward step. Standing, lying down, walking, feeding, running even
for life, it is always invincibly graceful, and adds beauty and
animation to every landscape,—a charming animal, and a great credit to
nature.
I never see one of the common blacktail deer, the only species in the
Park, without fresh admiration; and since I never carry a gun I see
them well: lying beneath a juniper or dwarf pine, among the brown
needles on the brink of some cliff or the end of a ridge commanding a
wide outlook; feeding in sunny openings among chaparral, daintily
selecting aromatic leaves and twigs; leading their fawns out of my way,
or making them lie down and hide; bounding past through the forest, or
curiously advancing and retreating again and again.
One morning when I was eating breakfast in a little garden spot on the
Kaweah, hedged around with chaparral, I noticed a deer’s head thrust
through the bushes, the big beautiful eyes gazing at me. I kept still,
and the deer ventured forward a step, then snorted and withdrew. In a
few minutes she returned, and came into the open garden, stepping with
infinite grace, followed by two others. After showing themselves for a
moment, they bounded over the hedge with sharp, timid snorts and
vanished. But curiosity brought them back with still another, and all
four came into my garden, and, satisfied that I meant them no ill,
began to feed, actually eating breakfast with me, like tame, gentle
sheep around a shepherd,—rare company, and the most graceful in
movements and attitudes. I eagerly watched them while they fed on
ceanothus and wild cherry, daintily culling single leaves here and
there from the side of the hedge, turning now and then to ship a few
leaves of mint from the midst of the garden flowers. Grass they did not
eat at all. No wonder the contents of the deer’s stomach are eaten by
the Indians.
[Illustration: Deer Feeding in the Forest.]
While exploring the upper cañon of the north fork of the San Joaquin,
one evening, the sky threatening rain, I searched for a dry bed, and
made choice of a big juniper that had been pushed down by a snow
avalanche, but was resting stubbornly on its knees high enough to let
me lie under its broad trunk. Just below my shelter there was another
juniper on the very brink of a precipice, and, examining it, I found a
deer-bed beneath it, completely protected and concealed by drooping
branches,—a fine refuge and lookout as well as resting-place. About an
hour before dark I heard the clear, sharp snorting of a deer, and
looking down on the brushy, rocky cañon bottom, discovered an anxious
doe that no doubt had her fawns concealed near by. She bounded over the
chaparral and up the farther slope of the wall, often stopping to look
back and listen,—a fine picture of vivid, eager alertness. I sat
perfectly still, and as my shirt was colored like the juniper bark I
was not easily seen. After a little she came cautiously toward me,
sniffing the air and grazing, and her movements, as she descended the
cañon side over boulder piles and brush and fallen timber, were
admirably strong and beautiful; she never strained or made apparent
efforts, although jumping high here and there. As she drew nigh she
sniffed anxiously, trying the air in different directions until she
caught my scent; then bounded off, and vanished behind a small grove of
firs. Soon she came back with the same caution and insatiable
curiosity,—coming and going five or six times. While I sat admiring
her, a Douglas squirrel, evidently excited by her noisy alarms, climbed
a boulder beneath me, and witnessed her performances as attentively as
I did, while a risky chipmunk, too restless or hungry for such shows,
busied himself about his supper in a thicket of shadbushes, the fruit
of which was then ripe, glancing about on the slender twigs lightly as
a sparrow.
Toward the end of the Indian summer, when the young are strong, the
deer begin to gather in little bands of from six to fifteen or twenty,
and on the approach of the first snowstorm they set out on their march
down the mountains to their winter quarters; lingering usually on warm
hillsides and spurs eight or ten miles below the summits, as if loath
to leave. About the end of November, a heavy, far-reaching storm drives
them down in haste along the dividing ridges between the rivers, led by
old experienced bucks whose knowledge of the topography is wonderful.
It is when the deer are coming down that the Indians set out on their
grand fall hunt. Too lazy to go into the recesses of the mountains away
from trails, they wait for the deer to come out, and then waylay them.
This plan also has the advantage of finding them in bands. Great
preparations are made. Old guns are mended, bullets moulded, and the
hunters wash themselves and fast to some extent, to insure good luck,
as they say. Men and women, old and young, set forth together. Central
camps are made on the well-known highways of the deer, which are soon
red with blood. Each hunter comes in laden, old crones as well as
maidens smiling on the luckiest. All grow fat and merry. Boys, each
armed with an antlered head, play at buck-fighting, and plague the
industrious women, who are busily preparing the meat for
transportation, by stealing up behind them and throwing fresh hides
over them. But the Indians are passing away here as everywhere, and
their red camps on the mountains are fewer every year.
There are panthers, foxes, badgers, porcupines, and coyotes in the
Park, but not in large numbers. I have seen coyotes well back in the
range at the head of the Tuolumne Meadows as early as June 1st, before
the snow was gone, feeding on marmots; but they are far more numerous
on the inhabited lowlands around ranches, where they enjoy life on
chickens, turkeys, quail eggs, ground squirrels, hares, etc., and all
kinds of fruit. Few wild sheep, I fear, are left hereabouts; for,
though safe on the high peaks, they are driven down the eastern slope
of the mountains when the deer are driven down the western, to ridges
and outlying spurs where the snow does not fall to a great depth, and
there they are within reach of the cattlemen’s rifles.
The two squirrels of the Park, the Douglas and the California gray,
keep all the woods lively. The former is far more abundant and more
widely distributed, being found all the way up from the foothills to
the dwarf pines on the Summit peaks. He is the most influential of the
Sierra animals, though small, and the brightest of all the squirrels I
know,—a squirrel of squirrels, quick mountain vigor and valor
condensed, purely wild, and as free from disease as a sunbeam. One
cannot think of such an animal ever being weary or sick. He claims all
the woods, and is inclined to drive away even men as intruders. How he
scolds, and what faces he makes! If not so comically small he would be
a dreadful fellow. The gray, Sciurus fossor, is the handsomest, I
think, of all the large American squirrels. He is something like the
Eastern gray, but is brighter and clearer in color, and more lithe and
slender. He dwells in the oak and pine woods up to a height of about
five thousand feet above the sea, is rather common in Yosemite Valley,
Hetch-Hetchy, Kings River Cañon, and indeed in all the main cañons and
Yosemites, but does not like the high fir-covered ridges. Compared with
the Douglas, the gray is more than twice as large; nevertheless, he
manages to make his way through the trees with less stir than his
small, peppery neighbor, and is much less influential in every way. In
the spring, before the pine-nuts and hazel-nuts are ripe, he examines
last year’s cones for the few seeds that may be left in them between
the half-open scales, and gleans fallen nuts and seeds on the ground
among the leaves, after making sure that no enemy is nigh. His fine
tail floats, now behind, now above him, level or gracefully curled,
light and radiant as dry thistledown. His body seems hardly more
substantial than his tail. The Douglas is a firm, emphatic bolt of
life, fiery, pungent, full of brag and show and fight, and his
movements have none of the elegant deliberation of the gray. They are
so quick and keen they almost sting the onlooker, and the acrobatic
harlequin gyrating show he makes of himself turns one giddy to see. The
gray is shy and oftentimes stealthy, as if half expecting to find an
enemy in every tree and bush and behind every log; he seems to wish to
be let alone, and manifests no desire to be seen, or admired, or
feared. He is hunted by the Indians, and this of itself is cause enough
for caution. The Douglas is less attractive for game, and probably
increasing in numbers in spite of every enemy. He goes his ways bold as
a lion, up and down and across, round and round, the happiest, merriest
of all the hairy tribe, and at the same time tremendously earnest and
solemn, sunshine incarnate, making every tree tingle with his electric
toes. If you prick him, you cannot think he will bleed. He seems above
the chance and change that beset common mortals, though in busily
gathering burs and nuts he shows that he has to work for a living, like
the rest of us. I never found a dead Douglas. He gets into the world
and out of it without being noticed; only in prime is he seen, like
some little plants that are visible only when in bloom.
The little striped Tamias quadrivittatus is one of the most amiable and
delightful of all the mountain tree-climbers. A brighter, cheerier
chipmunk does not exist. He is smarter, more arboreal and
squirrel-like, than the familiar Eastern species, and is distributed as
widely on the Sierra as the Douglas. Every forest, however dense or
open, every hilltop and cañon, however brushy or bare, is cheered and
enlivened by this happy little animal. You are likely to notice him
first on the lower edge of the coniferous belt, where the Sabine and
yellow pines meet; and thence upward, go where you may, you will find
him every day, even in winter, unless the weather is stormy. He is an
exceedingly interesting little fellow, full of odd, quaint ways,
confiding, thinking no evil; and without being a squirrel—a true
shadow-tail—he lives the life of a squirrel, and has almost all
squirrelish accomplishments without aggressive quarrelsomeness.
I never weary of watching him as he frisks about the bushes, gathering
seeds and berries; poising on slender twigs of wild cherry, shad,
chinquapin, buckthorn, bramble; skimming along prostrate trunks or over
the grassy, needle-strewn forest floor; darting from boulder to boulder
on glacial pavements and the tops of the great domes. When the seeds of
the conifers are ripe, he climbs the trees and cuts off the cones for a
winter store, working diligently, though not with the tremendous
lighting energy of the Douglas, who frequently drives him out of the
best trees. Then he lies in wait, and picks up a share of the burs cut
off by his domineering cousin, and stores them beneath logs and in
hollows. Few of the Sierra animals are so well liked as this little
airy, fluffy half squirrel, half spermophile. So gentle, confiding, and
busily cheery and happy, he takes one’s heart and keeps his place among
the best-loved of the mountain darlings. A diligent collector of seeds,
nuts, and berries, of course he is well fed, though never in the least
dumpy with fat. On the contrary, he looks like a mere fluff of fur,
weighing but little more than a field mouse, and of his frisky,
birdlike liveliness without haste there is no end. Douglas can bark
with his mouth closed, but little quad always opens his when he talks
or sings. He has a considerable variety of notes which correspond with
his movements, some of them sweet and liquid, like water dripping into
a pool with tinkling sound. His eyes are black and animated, shining
like dew. He seems dearly to like teasing a dog, venturing within a few
feet of it, then frisking away with a lively chipping and low
squirrelish churring; beating time to his music, such as it is, with
his tail, which at each chip and churr describes a half circle. Not
even Douglas is surer footed or takes greater risks. I have seen him
running about on sheer Yosemite cliffs, holding on with as little
effort as a fly and as little thought of danger, in places where, if he
had made the least slip, he would have fallen thousands of feet. How
fine it would be could mountaineers move about on precipices with the
same sure grip!
Before the pine-nuts are ripe, grass seeds and those of the many
species of ceanothus, with strawberries, raspberries, and the soft red
thimbleberries of Rubus nutkanus, form the bulk of his food, and a
neater eater is not to be found in the mountains. Bees powdered with
pollen, poking their blunt noses into the bells of flowers, are
comparatively clumsy and boorish. Frisking along some fallen pine or
fir, when the grass seeds are ripe, he looks about him, considering
which of the tufts he sees is likely to have the best, runs out to it,
selects what he thinks is sure to be a good head, cuts it off, carries
it to the top of the log, sits upright and nibbles out the grain
without getting awns in his mouth, turning the head round, holding it
and fingering it as if playing on a flute; then skips for another and
another, bringing them to the same dining-log.
The woodchuck (_Arctomys monax_) dwells on high bleak ridges and
boulder piles; and a very different sort of mountaineer is he,—bulky,
fat, aldermanic, and fairly bloated at times by hearty indulgence in
the lush pastures of his airy home. And yet he is by no means a dull
animal. In the midst of what we regard as storm-beaten desolation, high
in the frosty air, beside the glaciers he pipes and whistles right
cheerily and lives to a good old age. If you are as early a riser as he
is, you may oftentimes see him come blinking out of his burrow to meet
the first beams of the morning and take a sunbath on some favorite
flat-topped boulder. Afterward, well warmed, he goes to breakfast in
one of his garden hollows, eats heartily like a cow in clover until
comfortably swollen, then goes a-visiting, and plays and loves and
fights.
In the spring of 1875, when I was exploring the peaks and glaciers
about the head of the middle fork of the San Joaquin, I had crossed the
range from the head of Owen River, and one morning, passing around a
frozen lake where the snow was perhaps ten feet deep, I was surprised
to find the fresh track of a woodchuck plainly marked, the sun having
softened the surface. What could the animal be thinking of, coming out
so early while all the ground was snow-buried? The steady trend of his
track showed he had a definite aim, and fortunately it was toward a
mountain thirteen thousand feet high that I meant to climb. So I
followed to see if I could find out what he was up to. From the base of
the mountain the track pointed straight up, and I knew by the melting
snow that I was not far behind him. I lost the track on a crumbling
ridge, partly projecting through the snow, but soon discovered it
again. Well toward the summit of the mountain, in an open spot on the
south side, nearly inclosed by disintegrating pinnacles among which the
sun heat reverberated, making an isolated patch of warm climate, I
found a nice garden, full of rock cress, phlox, silene, draba, etc.,
and a few grasses; and in this garden I overtook the wanderer, enjoying
a fine fresh meal, perhaps the first of the season. How did he know the
way to this one garden spot, so high and far off, and what told him
that it was in bloom while yet the snow was ten feet deep over his den?
For this it would seem he would need more botanical, topographical, and
climatological knowledge than most mountaineers are possessed of.
[Illustration: A Mountain Woodchuck.]
The shy, curious mountain beaver, Haplodon, lives on the heights, not
far from the woodchuck. He digs canals and controls the flow of small
streams under the sod. And it is startling when one is camped on the
edge of a sloping meadow near the homes of these industrious
mountaineers, to be awakened in the still night by the sound of water
rushing and gurgling under one’s head in a newly formed canal. Pouched
gophers also have a way of awakening nervous campers that is quite as
exciting as the Haplodon’s paln; that is, by a series of firm upward
pushes when they are driving tunnels and shoving up the dirt. One
naturally cries out, “Who’s there?” and then discovering the cause,
“All right. Go on. Good-night.” and goes to sleep again.
The haymaking pika, bob-tailed spermophile, and wood-rat are also among
the most interesting of the Sierra animals. The last Neotoma is
scarcely at all like the common rat, is nearly twice as large, has a
delicate, soft, brownish fur, white on the belly, large ears thin and
translucent, eyes full and liquid and mild in expression, nose blunt
and squirrelish, slender claws sharp as needles, and as his limbs are
strong he can climb about as well as a squirrel; while no rat or
squirrel has so innocent a look, is so easily approached, or in general
expresses so much confidence in one’s good intentions. He seems too
fine for the thorny thickets he inhabits, and his big, rough hut is as
unlike himself as possible. No other animal in these mountains makes
nests so large and striking in appearance as his. They are built of all
kinds of sticks (broken branches, and old rotten moss-grown chunks and
green twigs, smooth or thorny, cut from the nearest bushes), mixed with
miscellaneous rubbish and curious odds and ends,—bits of cloddy earth,
stones, bones, bits of deer-horn, etc.: the whole simply piled in
conical masses on the ground in chaparral thickets. Some of these
cabins are five or six feet high, and occasionally a dozen or more are
grouped together; less, perhaps, for society’s sake than for advantages
of food and shelter.
Coming through deep, stiff chaparral in the heart of the wilderness,
heated and weary in forcing a way, the solitary explorer, happening
into one of these curious neotoma villages, is startled at the strange
sight, and may imagine he is in an Indian village, and feel anxious as
to the reception he will get in a place so wild. At first, perhaps, not
a single inhabitant will be seen, or at most only two or three seated
on the tops of their huts as at the doors, observing the stranger with
the mildest of mild eyes. The nest in the centre of the cabin is made
of grass and films of bark chewed to tow, and lined with feathers and
the down of various seeds. The thick, rough walls seem to be built for
defense against enemies—fox, coyote, etc.—as well as for shelter, and
the delicate creatures in their big, rude homes, suggest tender
flowers, like those of Salvia carduacea, defended by thorny involucres.
Sometimes the home is built in the forks of an oak, twenty or thirty
feet from the ground, and even in garrets. Among housekeepers who have
these bushmen as neighbors or guests they are regarded as thieves,
because they carry away and pile together everything transportable
(knives, forks, tin cups, spoons, spectacles, combs, nails,
kindling-wood, etc., as well as eatables of all sorts), to strengthen
their fortifications or to shine among rivals. Once, far back in the
high Sierra, they stole my snow-goggles, the lid of my teapot, and my
aneroid barometer; and one stormy night, when encamped under a
prostrate cedar, I was awakened by a gritting sound on the granite, and
by the light of my fire I discovered a handsome neotoma beside me,
dragging away my ice-hatchet, pulling with might and main by a buckskin
string on the handle. I threw bits of bark at him and made a noise to
frighten him, but he stood scolding and chattering back at me, his fine
eyes shining with an air of injured innocence.
A great variety of lizards enliven the warm portions of the Park. Some
of them are more than a foot in length, others but little larger than
grasshoppers. A few are snaky and repulsive at first sight, but most of
the species are handsome and attractive, and bear acquaintance well; we
like them better the farther we see into their charming lives. Small
fellow mortals, gentle and guileless, they are easily tamed, and have
beautiful eyes, expressing the clearest innocence, so that, in spite of
prejudices brought from cool, lizardless countries, one must soon learn
to like them. Even the horned toad of the plains and foothills, called
horrid, is mild and gentle, with charming eyes, and so are the
snakelike species found in the underbrush of the lower forests. These
glide in curves with all the ease and grace of snakes, while their
small, undeveloped limbs drag for the most part as useless appendages.
One specimen that I measured was fourteen inches long, and as far as I
saw it made no use whatever of its diminutive limbs.
Most of them glint and dart on the sunny rocks and across open spaces
from bush to bush, swift as dragonflies and humming-birds, and about as
brilliantly colored. They never make a long-sustained run, whatever
their object, but dart direct as arrows for a distance of ten or twenty
feet, then suddenly stop, and as suddenly start again. These stops are
necessary as rests, for they are short-winded, and when pursued
steadily are soon run out of breath, pant pitifully, and may easily be
caught where no retreat in bush or rock is quickly available.
If you stay with them a week or two and behave well, these gentle
saurians, descendants of an ancient race of giants, will soon know and
trust you, come to your feet, play, and watch your every motion with
cunning curiosity. You will surely learn to like them, not only the
bright one, gorgeous as the rainbow, but the little ones, gray as
lichened granite, and scarcely bigger than grasshoppers; and they will
teach you that scales may cover as fine a nature as hair or feathers or
anything tailored.
There are many snakes in the cañons and lower forests, but they are
mostly handsome and harmless. Of all the tourists and travelers who
have visited Yosemite and the adjacent mountains, not one has been
bitten by a snake of any sort, while thousands have been charmed by
them. Some of them vie with the lizards in beauty of color and dress
patterns. Only the rattlesnake is venomous, and he carefully keeps his
venom to himself as far as man is concerned, unless his life is
threatened.
Before I learned to respect rattlesnakes I killed two, the first on the
San Joaquin plain. He was coiled comfortably around a tuft of
bunch-grass, and I discovered him when he was between my feet as I was
stepping over him. He held his head down and did not attempt to strike,
although in danger of being trampled. At that time, thirty years ago, I
imagined that rattlesnakes should be killed wherever found. I had no
weapon of any sort, and on the smooth plain there was not a stick or a
stone within miles; so I crushed him by jumping on him, as the deer are
said to do. Looking me in the face he saw I meant mischief, and quickly
cast himself into a coil, ready to strike in defense. I knew he could
not strike when traveling, therefore I threw handfuls of dirt and grass
sods at him, to tease him out of coil. He held his ground a few
minutes, threatening and striking, and then started off to get rid of
me. I ran forward and jumped on him; but he drew back his head so
quickly my heel missed, and he also missed his stroke at me.
Persecuted, tormented, again and again he tried to get away, bravely
striking out to protect himself; but at last my heel came squarely
down, sorely wounding him, and a few more brutal stampings crushed him.
I felt degraded by the killing business, farther from heaven, and I
made up my mind to try to be at least as fair and charitable as the
snakes themselves, and to kill no more save in self-defense.
The second killing might also, I think, have been avoided, and I have
always felt somewhat sore and guilty about it. I had built a little
cabin in Yosemite, and for convenience in getting water, and for the
sake of music and society, I led a small stream from Yosemite Creek
into it. Running along the side of the wall it was not in the way, and
it had just fall enough to ripple and sing in low, sweet tones, making
delightful company, especially at night when I was lying awake. Then a
few frogs came in and made merry with the stream,—and one snake, I
suppose to catch the frogs.
Returning from my long walks, I usually brought home a large handful of
plants, partly for study, partly for ornament, and set them in a corner
of the cabin, with their stems in the stream to keep them fresh. One
day, when I picked up a handful that had begun to fade, I uncovered a
large coiled rattler that had been hiding behind the flowers. Thus
suddenly brought to light face to face with the rightful owner of the
place, the poor reptile was desperately embarrassed, evidently
realizing that he had no right in the cabin. It was not only fear that
he showed, but a good deal of downright bashfulness and embarrassment,
like that of a more than half honest person caught under suspicious
circumstances behind a door. Instead of striking or threatening to
strike, though coiled and ready, he slowly drew his head down as far as
he could, with awkward, confused kinks in his neck and a shamefaced
expression, as if wishing the ground would open and hide him. I have
looked into the eyes of so many wild animals that I feel sure I did not
mistake the feelings of this unfortunate snake. I did not want to kill
him, but I had many visitors, some of them children, and I oftentimes
came in late at night; so I judged he must die.
Since then I have seen perhaps a hundred or more in these mountains,
but I have never intentionally disturbed them, nor have they disturbed
me to any great extent, even by accident, though in danger of being
stepped on. Once, while I was on my knees kindling a fire, one glided
under the arch made by my arm. He was only going away from the ground I
had selected for a camp, and there was not the slightest danger,
because I kept still and allowed him to go in peace. The only time I
felt myself in serious danger was when I was coming out of the Tuolumne
Cañon by a steep side cañon toward the head of Yosemite Creek. On an
earthquake talus, a boulder in my way presented a front so high that I
could just reach the upper edge of it while standing on the next below
it. Drawing myself up, as soon as my head was above the flat top of it
I caught sight of a coiled rattler. My hands had alarmed him, and he
was ready for me; but even with this provocation, and when my head came
in sight within a foot of him, he did not strike. The last time I
sauntered through the big cañon I saw about two a day. One was not
coiled, but neatly folded in a narrow space between two cobble-stones
on the side of the river, his head below the level of them, ready to
shoot up like a Jack-in-the-box for frogs or birds. My foot spanned the
space above within an inch or two of his head, but he only held it
lower. In making my way through a particularly tedious tangle of
buckthorn, I parted the branches on the side of an open spot and threw
my bundle of bread into it; and when, with my arms free, I was pushing
through after it, I saw a small rattlesnake dragging his tail from
beneath my bundle. When he caught sight of me he eyed me angrily, and
with an air of righteous indignation seemed to be asking why I had
thrown that stuff on him. He was so small that I was inclined to slight
him, but he struck out so angrily that I drew back, and approached the
opening from the other side. But he had been listening, and when I
looked through the brush I found him confronting me, still with a
come-in-if-you-dare expression. In vain I tried to explain that I only
wanted my bread; he stoutly held the ground in front of it; so I went
back a dozen rods and kept still for half an hour, and when I returned
he had gone.
One evening, near sundown, in a very rough, boulder-choked portion of
the cañon, I searched long for a level spot for a bed, and at last was
glad to find a patch of flood-sand on the river-bank, and a lot of
driftwood close by for a campfire. But when I threw down my bundle, I
found two snakes in possession of the ground. I might have passed the
night even in this snake den without danger, for I never knew a single
instance of their coming into camp in the night; but fearing that, in
so small a space, some late comers, not aware of my presence, might get
stepped on when I was replenishing the fire, to avoid possible crowding
I encamped on one of the earthquake boulders.
There are two species of Crotalus in the Park, and when I was exploring
the basin of Yosemite Creek I thought I had discovered a new one. I saw
a snake with curious divided appendages on its head. Going nearer, I
found that the strange headgear was only the feet of a frog. Cutting a
switch, I struck the snake lightly until he disgorged the poor frog, or
rather allowed it to back out. On its return to the light from one of
the very darkest of death valleys, it blinked a moment with a sort of
dazed look, then plunged into a stream, apparently happy and well.
Frogs abound in all the bogs, marshes, pools, and lakes, however cold
and high and isolated. How did they manage to get up these high
mountains? Surely not by jumping. Long and dry excursions through weary
miles of boulders and brush would be trying to frogs. Most likely their
stringy spawn is carried on the feet of ducks, cranes, and other
waterbirds. Anyhow, they are most thoroughly distributed, and flourish
famously. What a cheery, hearty set they are, and how bravely their
krink and tronk concerts enliven the rocky wilderness!
None of the high-lying mountain lakes or branches of the rivers above
sheer falls had fish of any sort until stocked by the agency of man. In
the high Sierra, the only river in which trout exist naturally is the
middle fork of Kings River. There are no sheer falls on this stream;
some of the rapids, however, are so swift and rough, even at the lowest
stage of water, that it is surprising any fish can climb them. I found
trout in abundance in this fork up to seventy-five hundred feet. They
also run quite high on the Kern. On the Merced they get no higher than
Yosemite Valley, four thousand feet, all the forks of the river being
barred there by sheer falls, and on the main Tuolumne they are stopped
by a fall below Hetch-Hetchy, still lower than Yosemite. Though these
upper waters are inaccessible to the fish, one would suppose their eggs
might have been planted there by some means. Nature has so many ways of
doing such things. In this case she waited for the agency of man, and
now many of these hitherto fishless lakes and streams are full of fine
trout, stocked by individual enterprise, Walton clubs etc., in great
part under the auspices of the United States Fish Commission. A few
trout carried into Hetch-Hetchy in a common water-bucket have
multiplied wonderfully fast. Lake Tenaya, at an elevation of over eight
thousand feet, was stocked eight years ago by Mr. Murphy, who carried a
few trout from Yosemite. Many of the small streams of the eastern slope
have also been stocked with trout transported over the passes in tin
cans on the backs of mules. Soon, it would seem, all the streams of the
range will be enriched by these lively fish, and will become the means
of drawing thousands of visitors into the mountains. Catching trout
with a bit of bent wire is a rather trivial business, but fortunately
people fish better than they know. In most cases it is the man who is
caught. Trout-fishing regarded as bait for catching men, for the saving
of both body and soul, is important, and deserves all the expense and
care bestowed on it.
[Illustration: A Trout Stream in the Sierra Nevada (King’s River).]