372 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



1939 estimate of their numbers by the Biological Survey 

 credited California with 1,770 desert bighorns, and Nevada 

 with 1,485. If these figures are approximately correct, the race 

 is no longer in immediate danger. In both States they are 

 protected by law throughout the year. Cowan (1940) has 

 given a good summary of its recent history with a list of speci- 

 mens examined, including one from as far west as Caliente 

 Peak, San Luis Obispo, Calif. 



LOWER CALIFORNIA BIGHORN 



OVIS CANADENSIS CREMNOBATES Elliot 



Ovis cervina cremnobates Elliot, Field Columbian Mus. Publ. 87, zool. ser., vol. 3, p. 



239, Dec., 1903 (Matomi, San Pedro Martir Mountains, Lower California, 



Mexico). 

 FIGS.: Elliot, 1904, pt. 1, figs. 26, 27 (drawings of adult ram, immature ram, and ewe). 



This race of bighorn is described as resembling 0. c. nelsoni 

 "but of a much lighter color, the head of a three-year-old ram 

 being nearly white, with a very small caudal patch not divided 

 from color of upper parts by any perceptible line; fore part of 

 legs almost black . . . ; head very broad between orbits, 

 from 20 to 25 mm. broader in old rams than the head of 0. c. 

 nelsoni; horns of adult rams very large. " Length along outer 

 curve of horns in an old ram, 850 mm. (Elliot, 1904) . "Perhaps 

 the palest" of the races. 



The isolated desert mountains of the northern half of Lower 

 California, Mexico, northward to extreme southern California, 

 on the eastern and northeastern faces of the mountains along 

 the west side of the Colorado Desert, and to the lower northern 

 slopes of the San Jacinto Mountains in San Gorgonio Pass, 

 form the range of this palest of the desert bighorns. In south- 

 ern California it is not known ever to have invaded the Pacific 

 slopes but reached the eastern edges of San Diego and River- 

 side Counties. 



This was the first of the races of the bighorn known to Euro- 

 peans, for it was briefly described as long ago as 1702, in a 

 memoir by the Jesuit priest Francis Maria Piccolo, on the 

 discovery of a passage by land to Lower California. The 

 animal was called the "Taye" and was figured in 1758 by 

 Venegas, as detailed by J. A. Allen (1912) in whose historical 

 paper the figure is reproduced. He writes: "Sheep still exist 

 where the first Spanish missionaries found them in 1697. Dr. 



