THE WILD SHEEP 301 



To this last-named species belongs the wild sheep 

 of the Sierra. Its range, according to the late Pro 

 fessor Baird of the Smithsonian Institution, extends 

 " from the region of the upper Missouri and Yel 

 lowstone to the Eocky Mountains and the high 

 grounds adjacent to them on the eastern slope, and 

 as far south as the Rio Grande. Westward it ex 

 tends to the coast ranges of Washington, Oregon, 

 and California, and follows the highlands some dis 

 tance into Mexico." l Throughout the vast region 

 bounded on the east by the Wahsatch Mountains 

 and on the west by the Sierra there are more than a 

 hundred subordinate ranges and mountain groups, 

 trending north and south, range beyond range, with 

 summits rising from eight to twelve thousand feet 

 above the level of the sea, probably all of which, 

 according to my own observations, is, or has been, 

 inhabited by this species. 



Compared with the argali, which, considering its 

 size and the vast extent of its range, is probably 

 the most important of all the wild sheep, our 

 species is about the same size, but the horns are 

 less twisted and less divergent. The more im 

 portant characteristics are, however, essentially the 

 same, some of the best naturalists maintaining that 

 the two are only varied forms of one species. In 

 accordance with this view, Cuvier conjectures that 

 since central Asia seems to be the region where 

 the sheep first appeared, and from which it has 

 been distributed, the argali may have been dis 

 tributed over this continent from Asia by crossing 

 Bering Strait on ice. This conjecture is not so ill 



l Pacific Railroad Survey, Vol. VIII, page 678. 



