ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



327 



afford characters for easy identification when 

 these birds are seen from a steamer's deck. An 

 impressive sight is when a number of these 

 birds are seen driving ahead of a storm of 

 wind and rain until, becoming tired of sport- 

 ing with the raging elements, they swiftly rise 

 until they reach calm and sunlight high above 

 the tempest. 



Frigate Birds are gre- 

 garious, and large numbers 

 build their rough nests of 

 sticks on the low mangrove 

 bushes of some small coral 

 key, or isolated tropical 

 shore. One to three large 

 white eggs are laid, and 

 hatch into fluft'y white 

 chicks, which never leave 

 their rough platforms until 

 able to follow their parents 

 on the wing, to begin at 

 once the use of those won- 

 derful pinions which will 

 carry them through their 

 life, thousands upon thou- 

 sands of miles over stormy 

 seas and calm. 



c. w. B. 



probability of the discovery in America of any 

 living representative of the genus Capra, and 

 that it is useless to pursue the phantom "Ibex" 

 of the West. 



The specimen shot in Colorado, and sub- 

 mitted to us, was a domestic goat, presumably 

 of Spanish breed, that had escaped from cap- 



ROCKY MOUNT.\IN SHEEP HORN'.^ 



THE IRREPRESSIBLE AMERICAN 

 "IBEX." 



THROUGHOUT the Rocky Mountain 

 region from El Paso to Dawson City 

 belief in the existence of an undis- 

 covered American Ibex springs eternal in the 

 human mind. Again and again has the crea- 

 ture been seen and reported, with positiveness 

 and particularity. From the State of Washing- 

 ton, one man sent a very good drawing of its 

 head and horns, and from Colorado came a 

 photograph, an admirable description, and 

 measurements, of a specimen which had 

 actually been shot and mounted. Two really 

 distinguished sportsmen of our acquaintance 

 were with some difficulty convinced that n 

 journey in pursuit of the horned mystery 

 would be a waste of time. 



The spirit of investigation which prompts 

 the pursuit of a mysterious animal, is highlv 

 commendable. Without it the scientific world 

 would lose much. At the same time, it is un- 

 fortunate that all Rocky Mountain hunters can 

 not know that there reallv is not the faintest 



tivity and become wild and self-supporting. 

 Such animals account for some of the "ibexes" 

 that have been observed. A pair of horns and 

 a pelt recently sent to us by Dr. D. T. Mac- 

 Dougal, from the Desert Botanical Laboratory 

 at Tucson. Arizona, illustrate another source 

 of honest belief in the existence of an Ameri- 

 can Ibex. Dr. AlacDougal, who is himself a 

 keen naturalist, had no difficulty in naming at 

 sight the species which these specimens repre- 

 sent, but he kindly elected to afford us another 

 practical demonstration of an "Ibex" story re- 

 duced to its lowest terms. The animal shot as 

 an "Ibex" in the Santa Catalina Mountains of 

 Arizona proves to be a big-horn mountain 

 sheep, female, {Ovis canadensis), about four 

 years old. As in all horns of female mountain 

 sheep, these describe only a quarter of a circle, 

 and in their lack of curvature they are slightly 

 goat-like. 



Beyond doubt, the many "Ibex" stories and 

 queries that have so frequently arisen during 

 the past fifteen years, originated in honestly 

 made but wholly erroneous observations of 

 domestic goats running wild, of mountain 



