Alaskan Bighorn 1 5 



In the typical locality this race of the bighorn is found on the 

 mountains above the limits of forest. They are frequently met with 

 singly, and it is seldom that more than five are seen in company, although 

 a party of eleven has been observed. 



The precise limits of the range of this form have yet to be determined ; 

 a suggestion that it may occur in the heart of Alaska is referred to under 

 the heading of the next race. 



THE ALASKAN BIGHORN 



[Ovis canadensis chilli^ 

 (Plate I. Fig. 3) 



At the time when the volume entitled Wild Oxen, Sheep, and Goats of 

 All hands was being written, the British Museum possessed only an old and 

 battered specimen of the white sheep of Alaska, which London dirt had 

 rendered totally unfit for exhibition. Now, however, thanks to the 

 generosity of Mr. J. T. Studley, by whom they were presented in 1899, 

 a pair of these handsome animals, in the long and nearly pure white winter 

 dress, form two of the most conspicuous objects in the case devoted to the 

 exhibition of the unrivalled series of wild sheep. 



The American naturalist and explorer, Mr. E. W. Nelson, was the first 

 to describe and name this sheep, regarding it as a variety of the ordinary 

 bighorn. His paper was published in 1884. In 1897 Dr. J. A. Allen 

 raised this sheep to the rank of a distinct species, but in Wild Oxen, Sheep, 

 and Goats it was again relegated to the grade ot a local race. 



In height this sheep agrees very closely with the British Museum 

 example of the North-Western race, by the side of which Mr. Studley's pair 

 are exhibited. It likewise resembles that form in respect to the shape and 



