112 NEW YORK. ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
top rail, and from thence to the ground. When once outside 
she manifested not the slightest desire to run away, but quietly 
began to graze on the lawn. When six months old the size of 
this animal was as follows: Height at shoulders, 22% inches; 
length, nose to tail, 42 inches; weight, 51 pounds. 
When eleven months old its height was 3034 inches; length, 
55 inches; and weight, 90 pounds. 
When about sixteen months old it died of apoplexy. 
The Zoological Society of Philadelphia has exhibited in its 
Gardens several specimens of the Big Horn, and in response to 
my inquiries regarding their history in confinement, Mr. Arthur 
Erwin Brown, Superintendent of the Gardens, has favored me 
with the following very interesting statement: 
“In the matter of the Mountain Sheep, long ago I used the following 
language in the ‘Guide’ to our Gardens: ‘It is a significant fact, illus- 
trating the great principle of inheritance in animals, that the only species 
of ungulates from the western part of the American continent which have 
yet been successfully domesticated east of the region of the Great Plains 
are the elk and the buffalo, and in each of these cases their progenitors, 
but a few generations back, ranged nearly if not quite to the Atlantic 
coast.’ I have, for many years, been of the opinion that the ungulates of 
the Rocky Mountains will not stand domestication in the East. The dif- 
ficulty seems to me to lie chiefly in the increase of humidity in the at- 
mosphere and the deficiency of the mineral salts to which they have been 
accustomed in their native food, which in my experience it has not been 
possible to supply artificially with success. 
“The Zoological Society of Philadelphia has had four specimens of 
Mountain Sheep, all from Idaho. Three were females, one to two years 
old. The duration of their life in the Gardens was, respectively, four, 
seven, and eight months. In each case a condition of starvation, resulting 
from malnutrition, became obvious within a couple of months, gradually 
progressing, ultimately ending in diarrhoea and death. No especial lesions 
shown on autopsy. 
“The other specimen promised better. It was a fine male, apparently 
about four years old, and in fine condition. He reached the Gardens on 
December 10, 1895, and continued in good health, with good assimilation 
of food, until the summer of 1897, which was both hot and exceedingly 
damp. In July there were several weeks of unusual humidity, and he 
suddenly developed obstinate diarrhcea, which would not yield to treat- 
ment, and he died on July 18, 1897, a little more than nineteen months 
after his arrival. 
““T have seen so many cases of animals from dry climates, whose ail- 
ments here bore more or less exact proportion to the amount of humidity, 
that I have been led to regard it as a factor of prime importance. 
“T do not think we will ever have much success with sheep, still less 
