American Big Game in its Haunts 



Indians hunt, are all of one kind, but that in locali- 

 ties they differ in size, and somewhat in color. 



"They say that from the 49th parallel to the 

 headwaters of the Saskatchewan River, sheep are 

 larger than those in the Selkirks and coast ranges ; 

 and also that as they go north of the Saskatchewan 

 the sheep become smaller. As to color, they say 

 that the more southerly and western sheep are the 

 lighter; and that as you pass north the sheep are 

 darker in color. These Stonies report mountain 

 sheep as still to be found in all of the mountain 

 country they roam in. Their hunting ground is 

 about 400 miles long by 150 broad, and is prin- 

 cipally confined to the Rocky Mountain range." 



In an effort to establish something of the range 

 of the mountain sheep, during the very last years 

 of the nineteenth century, I communicated with a 

 large number of gentlemen who were either resi- 

 dent in, or travelers through, portions of the West 

 now or formerly occupied by the mountain sheep, 

 and the results of these inquiries I give below : 



Prof. L. V. Pirsson, of Yale University, who 

 has spent a number of years in studying the 

 geology of various portions of the northern Rocky 

 Mountains, wrote me with considerable fullness in 

 1896 concerning the game situation in some of the 

 front ranges of the Rockies, where sheep were 



320 



