OF THE LARGE AMERICAN MAMMALS 213 



sibly two hundred sheep, and Washington has only what 

 chemists call "a trace." It has recently been discovered that 

 California still contains a few sheep, and in southwestern 

 Nevada there are a few more. 



In Utah the big-horn species is probably quite extinct. 

 In Arizona there are a few very small bands, very widely 

 scattered. Thev are in the Santa Catalina Mountains, the 

 Grand Canyon country, the Gila Range, and the Quitova- 

 quita Mountains, near Sonoyta. But who can protect from 

 slaughter those Arizona sheep? Absolutely no one! They 

 are too few and too widely scattered for the game wardens 

 to keep in touch with them. The "prospectors" have them 

 entirely at their mercy, and the world well knows what 

 prospectors' : 'mercy" to edible big game looks like on the 

 ground. It leads straight to the frying-pan, the coyotes and 

 the vultures. 



The Lower California peninsula contains about five hun- 

 dred mountain sheep, without the slightest protection save 

 low, desert mountains, heat and thirst. But that is no real 

 protection whatever. Those sheep are too fine to be butchered 

 the way they have been, and now are being, butchered. In 

 1908 I strongly called the attention of the Mexican Govern- 

 ment to the situation; and the Departmento de Fomento se- 

 cured the issue of an executive order forbidding the hunting 

 of any big game in Lower California without the written 

 authority of the Government. I am sure, however, that, 

 owing to the political and military upheaval, the Government 

 never stopped the slaughter of sheep. In such easy moun- 

 tains as those of Lower California, il is a simple matter to 



