NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 361 



CALIFORNIA BIGHORN; LAVA BEDS BIGHORN; 

 RIMROCK SHEEP 



OVIS CANADENSIS CALIFORNIANA Douglas 



Ovis calif ornianus Douglas, Zool. Journ., vol. 4, p. 332, Jan., 1829 ("Near Mt. Adams, 



Yakima County, Washington"). 

 SYNONYMS: Ovis canadensis samilkameenensis Millais, The Gun at Home and Abroad, 



vol. 4, p. 324, 1915 (Similkameen Mountains, British Columbia); Ovis cervina 



sierrae Grinnell, Univ. California Publ. Zool., vol. 10, p. 144, 1912 ("East slope of 



Mount Baker, Sierra Nevada, Inyo County, California"). 

 FIGS.: Bailey, V., 1936, pi. 17 (horns). 



This race was believed to have been characterized by its 

 slightly darker color than the Rocky Mountain bighorn, with 

 heavier jaws and teeth, and especially by its horns, which 

 were slightly more spreading and less closely coiled, as well 

 shown in Bailey's (1936) figure. Cowan (1940), however, be- 

 lieves the color hardly different from that of canadensis. 



Originally described on the basis of a specimen from Mount 

 Adams in western Yakima County, Washington, sheep referred 

 to this race extended northward into the mountains of south- 

 central British Columbia, and southward through the lava- 

 beds region of extreme northeastern California and perhaps 

 the adjoining part of western Nevada to Tulare and Inyo 

 Counties, California. The race at the present time is believed 

 to be nearly extinct in California, where probably it occurred 

 west to "include neighborhood of Mount Shasta, and to Sheep 

 Rock . . , east side of Scott Valley, and to Siskiyou 

 Mountains, in Siskiyou County . . . ; also south as far 

 at least as Observation Peak, near Nevada line in eastern 

 Lassen County" (J. Grinnell, 1933). In their account of the 

 vertebrate natural history of the Lassen Peak region in ex- 

 treme northeastern California, Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale 

 (1930) adduce a few last records of sheep in that corner of the 

 State. A band of about 40 "that had lived on Observation 

 Peak were thought all to have perished in the severe winter of 

 1922," and many skeletons were found there the following 

 summer. In 1927 a small band thought to consist of four 

 females and two males was located in the extreme southeastern 

 corner of the region, close to the Nevada line. In Lassen 

 County the last sheep of which the authors could secure in- 

 formation was seen in 1872, but on Lassen Peak itself there 

 seems to be no evidence that the animal ever was found. 



