le the high heat total of the
year enables southern species to push far north. The resultant
intermingling of forms is very marked and characteristic of the Pacific
Coast states. The distribution of life-zones is primarily a matter of
altitude and corresponds to that of the isotherms. The mountain goat and
mountain sheep live in the Sierran upper-land, though long ago well-nigh
exterminated. The Douglas red squirrel is ubiquitous in the Sierran
forests and their most conspicuous inhabitant. White-tailed deer and
especially black-tails are found on the high Sierra; the mule deer, too,
although its habitat is now mainly east of the range, on the plateau, is
also met with. Grizzly, black, cinnamon and brown bears are all
Californian species once common and to-day rare. When Americans began to
rule in California elk and antelope herded in great numbers in the Great
Valley; the former may to-day sometimes be seen, possibly, in the
northern forests, and the latter occasionally cross into the state from
Nevada. The sage-hen is abundant on the eastern flank of the Sierra.
Grouse, quail, crows and woodpeckers (_Melanerpes formicivorus_) furnish
species characteristic of the state. There are various species of
ground-squirrels and gophers, which are very abundant. Noteworthy in the
animal life of the lower Sonoran and tropic region are a variety of
snakes and lizards, desert rats and mice; and, among birds, the cactus
wren, desert thrasher, desert sparrow, Texas night-hawk, mocking-bird
and ground cuckoo or road runner (_Geococcyx Californianus_). The
California vulture, the largest flying bird in North America and fully
as large as the Andean condor, is not limited to California but is
fairly common there. In the zoology and botany of California as of the
rest of the Pacific Coast, the distinctions between the upper austral
and humid transition zones are largely obliterated; and as one passes
southward into the arid lands, life forms of both these zones
intermingle with those of the arid transition.

Fish are abundant. The United States fish commission, and an active
state commission established in 1869, have done much to preserve and
increase this source of food. In 1904 the yield of the fisheries of the
three Pacific Coast states was 168,600,000 lbs., valued at
$6,681,000,--nearly half that of the New England states, more than
one-third that of the Middle Atlantic states and more than that of the
South Atlantic and Gulf states