^6 73 Vol. 48, pp. 187-190 November 15, 1935 PROCEEDINGS ^,.^-.^^-^ OF THE /^^^^^^^^ ^^^''^^7/^ BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGtSn A NEW NAME FOR THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN ELK. BY VERNON BAILEY. The geographic variation and subspecific characters of some of our best known large game mammals are less perfectly under-stood than in most of the groups of smaller mammals. This is due to the difficulty of getting together enough specimens of the larger species for comparison, to the scarcity of specimens from the early settled parts of the country, and to the crowded condition of our older museums where adequate collections of large mammals would take up more space than is available. There are no good specimens of buffalo or elk from any part of the eastern United States or Canada in the museums of this country, and the finer distinctions of geographic differences in these groups will never be known unless some long forgotten specimens are found in Old World museums, or in caves, lake beds, marshes, or burial mounds in this country where skulls and skeletons have been more or less imperfectly preserved. The first known form of the American elk or wapiti was described by Erxleben in 1777 as Cervus elaphus canadensis, from eastern Canada (probably the vicinity of Montreal), but there have been no wild native elk in eastern Canada or the extreme eastern United States for more than a century and apparently no specimens have been saved. Other subspecies from farther west have since been described, the large dark colored Cervus roosevelti^ Merriam from the Olympic Mountains in 1897; a large gray form, Cervus merriami Nelson, from Arizona in 1902; a small pale elk from the San Joaquin Valley, California, Cervus nannodes Merriam, in 1905; and a medium sized brown elk from northern Manitoba, Cervus canadensis manitobensis Millais in 1915. The large light gray elk of the Rocky Mountains, from Alberta to northern New Mexico, has been called Cervus canadensis for want of a better name, but with the full knowledge that the name did not apply subspecifically. With this still abundant species I take pleasure in asso-ciating the name of the late E. W. Nelson, who has done so much to advance our knowledge of North American mammals. iThe name Cervus occidentalis Ham. Smith, 1827, can not be shown to apply to any North American elk. 35— Pboc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 48, 1935. (187)
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