GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 75

actually spotted one with a telescope from town. During
the past year or two so many people have taken to camping
out on the mountain tops for the week-end that the
goats have been driven farther back, but even now you
would not have far to go to find them.

All along the coast and Cascade ranges there are hardly
any mountains which rise any height above timber line
that are without goats on them. If you go up any of the
long inlets in the spring or winter you will see them, if
you know where to look, scattered here and there on the
precipitous slopes of almost every high mountain. By
the time the shooting season commences most of them
have travelled away up out of sight, and then long, arduous
climbs are necessary to reach them.

To the east of the Cascade range you get into the “‘ dry
belt,’’ and here there is a wide strip of country running
many miles both north and south that is not suitable for
this species of game, as the mountains seldom rise above
the timber line and the tops are rolling and covered with
jack pine. But after passing this belt the Gold Range is
reached, and once more you begin to find goats, though
still in limited numbers. After this range is passed and
you come to the Selkirks they exist in abundance.

The Selkirks and Purcells, which adjoin one another,
form a vast expanse of enormous, precipitous mountains
that are liberally sprinkled with glaciers and high peaks,
many of which attain an altitude of 11,000 feet, and a
few rise even over that height. In these ranges there are
goats on almost every mountain.

Farther to the east the Rockies are reached, and from
their name you would naturally expect the range to be
the most suitable of all for goats, but this is not the case.
In places there is splendid goat range, but, taking it as a
whole, there are not so many of these animals as on the
Selkirks, Purcell, and coast ranges.

With regard to the northern limit where goats are to be
found. On the coast they exist far beyond the limits of
this Province, and it is said that they have been found as
far north as the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. It has

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