352 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



proportions, so that Cowan believes they deserve recognition 

 as a distinct geographical race. This fact, he comments, 

 "probably indicates a very long period of residence there and 

 an effective degree of isolation by the lower ground between 

 the peninsula and the mountains of the contiguous mainland. " 

 Very little seems to be recorded as to the present status of the 

 sheep on the Kenai Peninsula. W. T. Hornaday (1901) repro- 

 duces an account of hunting them in the Kenai Mountains by 

 Harry Lee, who mentions their great reduction in numbers at 

 the hands of prospectors and miners in the region forty years 

 ago. Previous records for this race from the base of the Alaska 

 Peninsula are regarded by Cowan (1940) as referring to typical 

 dalli. 



Undoubtedly on account of its limited range it should be 

 protected if it is to be saved from eventual extermination. 



STONE'S SHEEP; BLACK SHEEP 

 Ovis DALLI STONEI J. A. Allen 



Ovis stonei J. A. Allen, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 9, p. Ill, Apr. 8, 1897 (head- 

 waters of the Stikine River, British Columbia, altitude 6,500 feet). 



SYNONYMS: Ovis liardensis Lydekker, Wild Oxen, Sheep, and Goats, p. 215, fig. 41, 

 1898 (Liard River, Canada); Ovisfannini Hornaday, Fifth Ann. Rept. New York 

 Zool. Soc., p. 78, June 1, 1901 (Dawson City, Northwest Territories); Ovis cowani 

 Rothschild, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1907, p. 238 (mountain chain near Mount 

 Logan, British Columbia); Ovis canadensis niger Millais, The Gun at Home and 

 Abroad, vol. 4, p. 324, 1915 (Skeena River, mountains at the head of, British 

 Columbia). 



FIGS.: Hornaday, 1901, col. pi. opposite p. 78 (0. 'fannini'}, pis. opposite pp. 92, 98, 

 100; Nelson, 1916, p. 450, upper fig. (col.). 



South of the range of the typical form of the white sheep 

 occurs a dark-colored race, with intermediate conditions shown 

 by specimens from the mountains west of the Yukon between 

 Selkirk and Forty-mile River (the 0. "fannini") while vari- 

 ations from the mountain ranges in northern British Columbia, 

 though given distinct names, are now regarded as all referable 

 to Stone's sheep. 



Of the same general type as Ball's sheep, with slender, out- 

 curving horns of triangular cross section, Stone's sheep de- 

 velops a partly pigmented coat, varying from one with a gray 

 saddle to a more gray or dark-brown condition, with a black 

 dorsal stripe from the back of the head to the tip of the tail. 



