NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 373 



Charles H. Townsend on his recent 'Albatross' expedition to 

 Lower California . . . obtained some imperfect skulls of 

 mountain sheep from the natives at Conception Bay, and saw 

 a living specimen in the low mountains at the head of that bay. 

 He also informs me that mountain sheep are said still to in- 

 habit the low mountains near the Gulf coast as far south as 

 Saltillo del Rey, or to within about one hundred miles of La 

 Paz, and that they range thence northward in all the high hills 

 and mountains, especially on the Gulf side, nearly to the 

 United States boundary." Mearns (1907), during the survey 

 of the international boundary, was informed by Indians that 

 sheep were then (1894) abundant in most of the rocky ranges 

 of northern Lower California. In more recent years, however, 

 the needs of miners and prospectors have jeopardized the con- 

 tinued existence of bighorns in the region. Dr. E. W. Nelson 

 (1921) wrote that they were then "still widely distributed on 

 the main mountains of the eastern half of the peninsula," 

 but "the difficulties of transportation and the scarcity of live 

 stock through most parts of the peninsula render the securing 

 of food supplies so difficult that great numbers of game ani- 

 mals, especially mountain sheep^ have been killed and the meat 

 dried, or jerked, to supply mining camps and other communi- 

 ties. This deplorable and wasteful slaughter still continues 

 and unless checked will ultimately result in the extermination 

 of the sheep . . . Mountain sheep are peculiarly en- 

 dangered by this slaughter owing to their habit of going in 

 bands and drinking at certain watering places, where hunters 

 lie in wait behind blinds built of loose stones and kill indi- 

 viduals of all ages and sexes, often in a few minutes destroying 

 an entire band. I have been informed of one party having 

 killed more than 100 sheep in this manner to make dried meat 

 during a single season." 



Although in 1917 the Mexican Government prohibited the 

 hunting or exploitation of mountain sheep in Lower California, 

 "no effective enforcement of this regulation appears to have 

 been undertaken" (Nelson, 1921, p. 132). 



Cowan (1940) regards specimens from slightly north of 

 Calmalli, Lower California, as intermediate between this and 

 the race weemsi of the lower part of the peninsula, while others 

 from the Chuckawalla Mountains, California, are intergrades 

 between cremnobates and nelsoni. 



