136 ZOOLOGY. 



temperature is much warmer, and their chances of obtaining a full supply of food much greater 

 there than in the interior. In April or May they retreat to the interior, and to the foot-hills 

 and spurs of the Cascade mountains, where they remain until the next cold weather during 

 the interval rearing their young. The fawns are usually dropped about the last of May, the 

 dam frequently having two at a birth. They are spotted with white, resembling closely the 

 young of the Yirginian deer. 



A fine male black-tailed deer was killed near White river, about thirty miles northwest of 

 Fort Steilacoom, on the 28th of March, 1856. The skin was preserved and sent to Washington 

 city. This deer had no horns, having apparently recently shed them. Its ears, when mutually 

 abducted their fullest extent, measured, from tip to tip, 23 inches; from occiput to tip of nose, 

 16 inches; circumference behind shoulders, 3 feet 7 inches. The buck was considered very 

 large. 



The name of the black-tailed deer, in the Nisqually language, is stiib-eli-o-otl. S. 



NOTE. The deer of Whidby s island, Puget Sound, are remarkable for the fact that frequently 

 white and mottled individuals are found among them. To what species they belong 1 am 

 uncertain, but presume they are mere varieties or albinoes of the present species, which cer 

 tainly exists in great numbers on that island. In this opinion Mr. Gibbs coincides with me. S. 



ANTILOCAPRA AMERICANA, Ord. 



Prong-horn Antelope ; Cabree. 

 BAIRD, Gen. Rep. Mammals, p. 666. 



Lewis and Clark mention that the antelope exists on the great plains of the Columbia, 

 though by no means as abundant as east of the Rocky mountains. I suspect that they are 

 nearly if not quite extinct there, as I have never met them. Neither have I ever heard of 

 them in Oregon ivest, of the Cascades. I however saw them in large droves in the Shasta 

 valley, and suppose that they occur on the plains of California generally. G-. 



The antelope is, without doubt, sparingly found in Oregon; but unless stragglers occur on the 

 Spokane plains, it is doubtful whether it enters Washington Territory. Townsend corroborates 

 Lewis and Clark s statement that they are found in Oregon, and I myself have been on expedi 

 tions in the vicinity of Snake river when some members of our party have seen them. They 

 are said by the Indians to have been formerly quite plentiful at the Dalles of the Columbia, 

 but they are now nearly exterminated in that locality. A few, however, are still found at the 

 warm springs near the sources of John Dea s river, about 100 miles from Fort Dalles. S. 



APLOCERUS MONTANUS. 



Mountain Goat. 



Ovis montana, ORD. Guthrie s Geography (2d Am. Ed.) II, 1815, 292, 309. IB. J. A. N. Sc. I, i, 1817, 8. 

 Jlploctrus montanus, RICHARDSON, Zool. of Herald; Fossil Mammils, II, 1852, 131 ; pi. xvi-xix. Osteology. 



BAIRD, Gen. Rep. Mammals, 1857, 671. 

 Capra americana, BAIRD, Rep. U. S. Pat. Off. Agricultural for 1851, (1852,) 120 ; plate. (From Rich.) 



AUD. & BACH. N. Am. Quad. Ill, 1853, 128 ; pi. cxxviii 



Rocky Mountain Sheep, JAMESON, &quot; Wernerian Transactions, III, 1821, 306.&quot; 

 Mountain Goat, Mountain Slieep, White Goat, &fc., VULGO. 

 Wow of the Yakima, Walla-Walla, and Klickatat Indians. 



SP. CH. Entirely white. Horns, hoofs, and edge of nostrils black. Hair long and pendant. A beard-like tuft of hair 

 on the chin. 



This animal, described by Lewis and Clark, vol. 3, pp. 117, 118, is the American mountain 



