2IO Sheep 



of the typical race of this species, the British Museum being singularly 

 deficient in examples. Indeed, almost the only good skin it possesses is that 

 of an old male, which is mounted and exhibited. It is apparently in the 

 winter coat, judging from the length and thickness of the hair, and 

 remarkable tor its extreme paleness, but whether this is normal or due to 

 fading, I am unable to say. 



Mr. E. S. Cameron informs me that in autumn and winter the pre- 

 vailing tint is the same as that of the mule-deer, namely, a dark brownish- 

 gray, and when the two animals are placed side by side no difference can 

 be perceived in the colour of the upper-parts. In the sheep the under- 

 parts anteriorly, portions of the legs, and the tail, are brown ; a narrow 

 strip ot the brown colour ot the tail being continued across the white of 

 the rump and meeting the gray of the back. The tail itself is very short, 

 only 4 inches in the largest rams, surrounded by an extensive patch of 

 yellowish-white extending between the thighs and to the groin. Measured 

 from the root of the tail this disk reaches 8,^ inches above and 8^ inches 

 on either side in full-grown examples, and is thus very conspicuous in 

 the bad-lands where these sheep show up like a band of pronghorns — more 

 especially in early summer. The muzzle is of the same yellowish-white 

 colour. A broad yellowish-white stripe extends down the inside of the 

 fore-legs and on the outside of the hind-legs ; or, in other words, the legs 

 are half-white and half-brown ; but I have seen old rams in which this 

 white was much circumscribed. In the spring the sheep gradually bleach 

 out lighter and appear of a dun colour until they shed the coat, which may 

 be any time from the end of May to the middle of July according to the 

 season. 



The following are some of the largest horn-measurements of the present 

 and other American races recorded by Mr. Rowland Ward : — 



