MAMMALSOr TJ1K MEXICAN BOI NDAEY. '235 



deuces of its existence in suitable places from southwestern Texas to 

 the mountains of the Coast Range bordering the Pacific Ocean, I was 

 unable to examine any skin-- from the eastward of the Tule Moun- 

 tains, in the Western Desert Tract, though the species was seen in the 

 Elevated Centra] and Eastern Desert tracts. From the examination 

 of one skin from San Francisco Mountain. Arizona, and a small 

 series of horns collected in the Dog Mountains. Grant County. New 

 Mexico, and on the Verde River, Arizona, and from the observation 

 of living animals in these regions I am inclined to consider the Big- 

 horn of the Elevated Central Tract to be intermediate in characters 

 between the northern Rocky Mountain form" and that inhabiting 

 the "Western Desert Tract, the Latter being the wry distinct race 

 nelsoni, described below. For the present, with the scanty material 

 available for study, I prefer to consider the Bighorns of the north- 



« The synonymy of this form is as follows : 



OVIS CANADENSIS Shaw. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN BIGHORN. 



Mountain Ram of North America Mitchell, New York Medical Repository, 



1803. p. 237. fig. 



Belicr de Montague E. Geoffboy de St.-Hilaire, Annates <lu Musee d'His- 

 toire Naturelle, II. 1803, pp. 360-363, pi. lx (Canada, lat. 50°; long. 

 115°). 



Oris canadensis Shaw, Naturalist's .Miscellany. XV. pi. dcx, with text, about 

 Dec., 1803. (A penciled memorandum on the title page of the copy in 

 the Library of Congress indicates that plates dlxxxix to Dcxni were 

 published in 1803. Plate dlxxxix (the first in the volume) is dated 

 l.so:;. Plate ncxiv is dated 1804. The intermediate plates are not 

 dated. Pages preceding and following the descriptive text, which is 

 not paged, are watermarked 1803.) — Biddulph, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 

 188r>, pp. 678-684 (reverts to this earlier name than Oris montana, 

 establishing Oris canadensis in its place). — Merria.m. North American 

 Fauna, No. 3, 1890, pp. 78, 79. 



Ovis cervina Desmarest. Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, NXIV. 



1804, p. 5 (based on the Belier de Montagne of Geoffroy) : uouv. ed., 

 XXI. 1818, p. 553.— Rafinesque, Am. .Month. Mag., 1. Oct.. 1817, p. 

 436. — Alston, Biologia Centrali-Americana, Mam. 1880, p. 111. — 

 Allen, Bui. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist.. VII. 1895, p. 258 (gives important 

 synonymy and attempts to establish Oris cervina <>n I he basis of the 

 1804 edition of Desmarest's Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 but fails to show that Ibis work antedated the publication of Shaw's 

 Ovis canadensis, the name in current use). 



Ovis ammon Mitchill, New York Medical Repository, X. 1807, p. '■'>'>. — Ord, 

 in Guthrie's Geography (I'd Am. ed.), II, 181.", pp. ii ( .r_\ 308. — Hari.an. 

 F. Amer.. 1825, p. 164 (description from Lewis and Clark's speci- 

 mens). — Godman, Am. Nat. Hist.. II, p. 328. 



Ovis montana Cttvter, Regne Anim., I, 1S17. p. 267 (a name long current, 

 hut preoccupied by Ord's Ovis montana. the name which he applied to 



