BLUEBELL (_Campanula rotundifolia_) grows from sea level to the dry, rocky slopes above timberline. At the higher elevations it blooms from July to September and can be recognized easily by its pale blue, nodding, bell-like flowers about three-quarters of an inch long. [Illustration: SPREADING PHLOX.] [Illustration: ROOSEVELT ELK. THE BULLS GROW NEW ANTLERS EACH YEAR.] Wildlife One of the reasons for establishing Olympic National Park was to insure “protection and preservation of interesting fauna, notably the rare Roosevelt elk....” There are 54 species and subspecies of wild mammals occupying their primitive homes on the Olympic Peninsula (Murray L. Johnson and Sherry Johnson, _Check List of Mammals of the Olympic Peninsula_). Probably all of these occur within the park. The wildlife picture is not a static one, however, as natural disturbances, time, and man bring changes in numbers, kinds, and distribution. Climatic changes have greatly affected the animal life. There have been periods of extreme cold and periods of warmth. At least four times the ice-age glaciers advanced and melted back. When ice sheets moved down from the north and extensive glaciers formed in the mountains, the animals left. When the ice retreated, the animals returned. Not all animal types were able to survive, so that some animals that once lived in Washington are now extinct. One of these was the mastodon, resembling the present-day elephant. In 1950, a fossil skeleton of a mastodon was found in an excavation on a farm near Port Angeles, and tusks and parts of skeletons have been found from time to time in the bluffs east of Port Angeles. Because the Olympic Mountains are isolated from other mountains, some animals of the Pacific Northwest have never found their way to the park. For instance, several kinds of animals in the Cascade Mountains are unknown in the Olympics. These include the mantled ground squirrel, pika or cony, and red fox. The wolverine, now rare in the Cascades, has never been seen in the Olympics. But animals move about, and it is entirely possible that there will be natural additions to the Olympic fauna. Dr. Victor B. Scheffer has stated that the red fox and the porcupine are expected to invade the Peninsula sometime in the present century. During 1951, two porcupines were seen on the Peninsula near the ocean—one at Kalaloch and another south of Queets Village. Other changes have been brought about directly or indirectly by man. The Olympic wolf—a big, gray, magnificent animal—was once fairly numerous, but, because of merciless poisoning and hunting before the park was established, it is now probably extinct. The coyote, renowned for his ability to survive civilization, has invaded the Olympic Peninsula during the present century. To some extent this animal fills the ecologic niche left vacant by the disappearance of the Olympic wolf.