1936] 



MAMMALS OF OREGON 



65 



sheep farther south. Upper inolar series 85 to 90 mm in old rams against 81 

 to 86 in typical canadensis. No body measurements known. 



History of the name " Ovis calif ornianus" On Sunday, August 27, 1826, David 

 Douglas on his way down the Columbia River from Walla Walla to Fort Van- 

 couver traveled to a point 15 miles below the mouth of the Deschutes River. 

 Earlier in the day at the " Great Falls of the Columbia ", which he locates about 

 6 miles east of The Dalles, he procured the horns of a mountain sheep from an 

 Indian and tried to barter for the skin of one of these animals which the 

 Indian was wearing as a shirt. Three years later these horns and his notes on 

 this skin furnished the foundation for his description of Ovis californianus, 

 which he reported as "said to be found in subalpine regions of Mts. 'Wood' 

 [sic]. St. Helens, and Vancouver, but more numerous in the mountainous 

 districts of the interior of California." 



From his journal it is evident that Douglas never saw a mountain sheep 

 alive and his information in regard to their range was all second-hand and 

 more or less at fault. It is not improbable that the horns which became the 

 type of the species were taken within a mile of where he procured them. The 

 subalpine range may have 

 been borrowed from the nar- 

 rative of Finley, of Spokane, 

 who described to him the 

 range of the northern Rocky 

 Mountain form from the high 

 ranges east of there and 

 promised to try to get a speci- 

 men for him. His attribut- 

 ing their range to Mount 

 Hood, Mount St. Helens, and 

 Mount Adams, where no one 

 has found them since seems 

 very questionable, as the 

 heavy winter snowfall would 

 permit only a short summer 

 occupation of the high parts 

 of these peaks. On the other 

 hand, well into the present 

 generation, mountain sheep 

 have been common along the 

 canyon walls of the Des- 

 chutes River to near its 



mouth, and before the days of rifles they undoubtedly followed the terraced 

 lava walls of the Columbia River Valley at least on the Oregon side, both 

 above and below the mouth of the Deschutes River. 



In fact, on December 8, 1825, about 9 months before Douglas found his 

 specimens, one of the hunters of Peter Skene Ogden killed a sheep in the rough 

 little range of mountains about 40 miles south of The Dalles still known as the 

 " Mutton Mountains ", and after crossing to the east side of the Deschutes River 

 Canyon near the mouth of Warm Springs Creek a few days later Ogden reported 

 a fine herd of sheep but " too swift for us " (1909, pp. 340, 342). 



On February 4 of the following winter, Ogden reports four sheep killed near 

 the headwaters of Burnt River (1909, p. 352). On January 1, 1827, somewhere 

 in the Klamath Lake section not definitely located he reports a " goat killed ", 

 and on May 30 of the same year somewhere in the Warner Lake country he 

 says: "An ibex 2b killed today and a young one taken alive. I shall feed it on 

 mare's milk until we reach Fort Vancouver" (1910, pp. 212, 219). 



Distribution and habitat. Originally mountain sheep inhabited 

 every canyon, cliff, and lava butte as well as many of the rough lava 

 beds of Oregon east of the Cascade Mountains (fig. 8). They were 

 common until recent years in the Steens and Warner Mountains and 

 are still found in the Wallowa Mountains and along the canyon 



FIGURE 8. Range of Rocky Mountain bighorn and 

 Oregon bighorn in Oregon : 1, Ovis canadensis 

 canadensis; 2. O. c. calif orniana. Type locality 

 circled. 



2b The names " goat " and " ibex " were undoubtedly applied to the female and young 

 male sheep, names that are frequently misapplied to the animal even at the present 

 day. 



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