ORIGIN OF AMERICAN MOUNTAIN SHEEP 37 



Fannin's Mountain Sheep 1 is a comparatively new 

 subspecies, found first on the Klondike River, Yukon Terri- 

 tory, in 1900. It is about the size of the white sheep, and 

 has a snow-white head, neck and tail-patch, and a bluish-gray 

 body, like a white sheep covered with a gray blanket. It 

 also has a blue-gray tail, and a band of brown running down 

 the front of each leg. The type specimen was sent from 

 Dawson City to the Provincial Museum at Victoria, B. C, 

 in 1900, and since then many others have been taken. This 

 form is a connecting link between the white sheep and the 

 black sheep, and inasmuch as specimens vary in color both 

 ways into the White and Black species, it would seem that 

 Nature has not yet completed her work of segregating 

 Fannin's Sheep as a clearly defined species. 



In the table printed on page 38 are given measurements 

 in inches of some of the largest and finest wild-sheep horns 

 with which I am personally ac( main ted. 



Origin of AxMErican Mountain Sheep. — It seems highly 

 probable that a number of species of North American mam- 

 mals and birds were acquired by immigration from the Old 

 World. Of this there is no stronger evidence than that fur- 

 nished by the genus Ovis, which was cradled in the mountains 

 of Central Asia. Western Mongolia and Tibet have pro- 

 duced the colossal Argali, the wonderful, wide-horned Polo 

 Sheep, and the robust Siar Sheep. 



As the genus spread southward, it produced the small 

 Urial and Burrhel, and stopped short at the northern edge 

 of the superheated plains of India. But northward its fate 



1 0. dull' i fan' nin-i. 



