ORDER ARTIODACTYLA : EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 597 



forms part of the Stanovoi system, at about lat. 56 N., long. 132- 

 137 E.) He adds that "the subspecies which inhabits the Chukchi 

 Peninsula is still unknown." I shall include the latter provisionally 

 with the present form. 



According to Middendorff (1853, p. 116), the Tungus stated that 

 a Wild Sheep inhabited the mountain summits about the source 

 of the Utshur River, in the Djugdjura Range; further, that the 

 mountains east of the Polowinnaja River, and south of the above- 

 mentioned range, contained many sheep. In June and July some of 

 the hunters resorted there with dogs; the sheep retreated to the 

 highest points, where they either were cut off and killed, or ran the 

 gauntlet of the remaining hunters holding the passes. 



Buxton (in J. A. Allen, 1903, p. 132) says: 



Mountain Sheep probably occur all over Northeastern Siberia wherever the 

 mountains are rugged enough to attract them, although I have only a few 

 reliable records of their presence at widely separated places in that vast terri- 

 tory. They are found in the Stanovoi Mountains, at Ayan, Okhotsk, Ola, 

 Yamsk, Mickina or Niakinsk, and on as far north at least as the Arctic 

 Circle, and perhaps further, although the range becomes much less rugged 

 towards the north. They are also found along the Kolyma River to the 

 westward of that range. A few are taken in the mountains in the Anadyr 

 Territory about Marcova. They are common on the Taiganose Peninsula 

 .... The wandering reindeer Koryaks inhabiting the Taiganose Peninsula 

 kill a few every winter. 



In 1921 Burnham (1929) made an expedition along the south 

 coast of the Chukchi Peninsula, from Emma Harbor to Holy Cross 

 Bay, expressly in search of sheep. He found them very scarce and 

 severely pressed by the natives. The Chukchi deer-herders are 

 "exceptionally capable stalkers and if they succeed in locating a 

 sheep they follow until they get it. Under such conditions the sheep 

 are doomed." (P. 120.) Burnham killed a female near the Shair- 

 rainnik River, west of Emma Harbor (p. 108), and saw a few 

 others or found traces of them at several additional places, including 

 Mount Matasingi, at the head of Holy Cross Bay (pp. 247-267). 

 He quotes a manuscript of Sokolnikoff's, who states that about 

 1900 he secured a specimen from the Paku-Puai Mountains, and two 

 others from the mountains to the south of Anadyr (p. 200). He 

 states (p. 280) that "the sheep from the Matasingi-Chaun Bay 

 sector have coal black horns." 



Belopolski indicates (1933, p. 186 and map) that sheep occur on 

 all the more prominent ranges from the Stanovoi Mountains east- 

 ward to Bering Strait, but that their numbers have greatly declined 

 in the past 20-30 years. 



