As for the great size of the horns,
the animal was running away, and every hunter is aware of the enormous
proportions which the antlers attain of an escaping elk or deer. How
they suddenly shrink when the beast is shot is another story.
Incidentally, the refuges of southern California will include the
breeding places of the trout in the upper reaches of the streams, and
will afford protection to grouse, quail, and other birds, but primarily
their purpose is to prevent the extermination of big game. In California
this has gone as far as it is safe to go if we are to save the
remnant. Even the California grizzly has been killed off so relentlessly
that it was a question, when I was there, whether a single pair survived
which might possibly in that State preserve the species. The ranger who
knew the most about this was of the opinion that two or three were still
left alive. He had seen their tracks within a year.[11] There are, I
have been assured, others in Oregon.
[Footnote 11: I have been informed since the above was written that he
saw the tracks of a single grizzly after I was there, toward the end of
July.
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