106 NEW. YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: 
combine to render them difficult to find and difficult to kill, and 
therefore all the more tempting to the genuine sportsman. 
Although constantly persecuted, the Big Horn has held its own 
throughout many portions of its original range with surprising 
persistence. Although in many localities it has been extermi- 
nated, it still lives in situations which seem utterly untenable for 
an animal so large and so highly prized by the hunter and epi- 
cure. Only two years ago three Mountain Sheep were found on 
the bluffs of the Yellowstone River, almost opposite Miles City, 
Mont., fully 150 miles from the nearest mountains. In 1900, 
two large rams were seen in the bad lands of the Little Missouri, 
on the Custer Trail Ranch, four miles south of Medora, N. D. 
Stranger, however, than any of the pioneering known of Moun- 
tain Sheep in the northern latitudes is the daring energy of this 
animal in crossing wide tracts of waterless desert in order to 
reach fresh fields and pastures new. Mr. Willard D. Johnson 
found Mountain Sheep (probably Ovis nelsoni) on the Seri 
Mountains, in northwestern Mexico, a range which is separated 
by seventy-five miles of waterless desert from the nearest ranges 
of the Sierra Madres. 
The ancestors of the Mountain Sheep found by Dr. Merriam 
on San Francisco Mountain, Arizona, must have traversed forty 
miles of arid country to reach their present home from their 
probable point of departure, the Grand Cafion of the Colorado. 
Habits.—The ideal haunts of Mountain Sheep of all species, 
from the Arctic coast to Colorado, are the slopes of high moun- 
tains, above timber line, near the edge of the snow fields that 
are perpetual. Contrary to the general belief that these regions 
are usually barren of vegetation, both in the north and in our 
own country, the belt immediately above timber line is usually 
rich in herbage. On the continental divide in Wyoming it is no 
rare sight to find southern slopes covered with rich grass a foot 
or more in height. In many portions of Alaska such regions are 
abundantly provided with plant-life acceptable to the White 
Mountain Sheep as food. Mr. J. K. Mankowski informs me that 
on the mountains north of Skagaway the treeless slopes above 
timber line are really rich pastures, covered with grass resembling 
red-top and other vegetation, on which the White Mountain Sheep 
and Mountain Goats feed luxuriously. In some localities the tree- 
less belt between timber line and the edge of perpetual snow bears 
