76 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 



ervation of so valuable a possession will accomplish more 

 than anything else towards the attainment of the desired 

 object. 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP 



Of all our big-game animals none is more characteristic 

 of our western mountains, and none offers such a magnifi- 

 cent trophy to the sportsmen whose endurance its winning 

 demands, as the mountain sheep, or ''big-horn." It is the 

 best-known type of the New World representatives of the 

 numerous forms of wild sheep, all characterized by their 

 circular horns, that are to be found in the Old World, where 

 the finest of all the wild sheep, Ovis poli, occurs in the lofty 

 Pamir ranges of Central Asia. 



Our several species of American mountain sheep are 

 found from northern Mexico on the south to the mountains 

 fringing the northern coast of Alaska and western side of 

 the Mackenzie delta. They reach their greatest abundance 

 in the central parts of their range. 



In the United States they have suffered the fate of the 

 rest of the big game, and have been exterminated in very 

 many of their former haunts through the greed of hunters 

 and others whose rapacity has been permitted to run riot 

 owing to the lack of adequate protection; and also by dis- 

 ease contracted from domestic sheep. The history of this 

 animal in the southern portion of its range serves as a 

 solemn warning to us, and should be an incentive to the 

 enforcement of every possible means that will secure the 

 preservation of an animal which in its native haunts evokes 

 thrills of admiration in every mountaineer. 



In Canada we have three distinct species of mountain 

 sheep: the Rocky Mountain sheep {Ovis canadensis) and its 

 varieties; Stone's or the black mountain sheep (Ovis stonei), 

 described by J. A. Allen in 1897; and the pure- white Ball's 

 mountain sheep {Ovis dalli), of the far north and Alaska, 



