1)2 UNITED STATES AND MEXICAN BOUNDARY. 



"On several occasions we have travelled over the road between San Antonio, Texas, and El Paso, on the Rio Grande, hut 

 we never have observed the antelope in that country until after crossing the Pecos river, and from that stream as far as the Rio 



Grande found it alwajs the most common of the larger species of quadrupeds. On the immense plains and wide valleys 

 stretching out from the Limpia mountains in all directions large herds are often seen. The number of individuals composing a 

 herd vary from eight or ten to several hundred. We have often seen more than a hundred together, and perhaps sometimes as 

 many as three hundred. 



" In going westward from the Rio Grande we found them equally as numerous as in the country east of that stream, as far as 

 we travelled. In the northern part of Sonora they were very common, and for the most part less shy and more easily captured 

 than in other localities. In the less frequented regions the hunter has only partially to conceal himself and shake his hat or 



handkerchief, thus attracting the attention of the animals, whose curiosity is so great as to cause them to approach within gun- 

 shot. This approach, however, is not made without apparent caution, for while performing it they walk very slowly, often 

 stopping, and should they get to the windward of the hunter beat a rapid retreat, and soon disappear in the distance- 



" In the northern part of the States of Chihuahua and Sonora we found the females very far advanced in pregnancy about 

 the middle of July." — (Dr. Kennerly.) 



OYIS MONTANA, (p. 673.) Big Horn ; Mountain Sheep. 



r 



Of this animal no specimens were collected^ tliongh frequently seen hj the Commission, 



•* The J)Io\intain Sheepy Big Horn, of the •Americans of California and ..Veic Mexico ; Borrego cimaronj of the Sonoria^is ; Tenatzali, 







of the Jlpaches ; Taje. ffthe CochimSs of Lower California. — The rocky sierras of northwestern Sonora, where want of water not 

 onij^ forbids the existence of every other species of ruminant, and where even the coyote, with all his cunning and tenacity, 

 is nearly ruled ont, are the favorite home of the mountain sheep, 



'• The state of drainage j.eculiar to a country seems to establish principally the existence of one or the other species of those 

 ruminants, which are indigenous to the regions adjacent to the boundary line. 



** Thus, the comm'-n deer belongs to the more shady lo^vlands, the mule deer to the uplands ; the antelope ranges over the 

 open mountain table lands, whilst the mountain sheep has its home" over the rugged crests of the waterless sierras of north- 

 western Sonora and New Mexico. 



"Whilst surveying along the boundary line, I had sometimes occasion to leisurely observe these shy and comparatively rare 

 aninrials upon their native ground. As usually an unarmed man is alw^ays led nearest to game, so was I on one day, walking 

 almost side by side at eight to ten yards distance, with a large ram, which certainly stood upon his legs nearly four feet high 

 above ground, with a length of five feet from head to tail. 



^ ** One whole afternoon, (I was waiting then for signals from another station,) a singular noise in the cliffs of an opposite 

 mountain slope fixed my attention, and it was some hours before I was able to find out the real nature of it. It sounded as if a 

 rock had been precipitated somewhere, and I first icclined to be satisfied with that ; but as the sound, after certain intervals, 

 was so often repeated, and the game lasted until evening, I attributed it to something else, until I seized upon the correct idea. 

 The noise was nothing else than the result of a butting combat between two rams. On the whole of these mountain tops there 

 was not a single horizontal or gently inclined spot where the round footprints of this animal could not be observed. In some 

 places well beaten pathways lead up to the most rugged portions of the rocky sierras, w^here man hardly may trust his foot, 

 lest he may be precipitated with the loosened detritus of weather-washed decompesed rocks. The water on which the inhab- 

 itants of these forsaken desert mountains depend are mostly but rain-water holes, (tinajas,) in which, during the hot season, 

 water must become scarce enough. 



«« I have been assured by hunters that a flock or drove of these big horns, when closely pursued, will not shrink from a gen- 

 eral leap over a precipice of one hundred and more feet deep to effect their escape. It is also stated that they do so without any 

 risk, but escape, every one uninjured, by throwing themselves head foremost upon the heaviest portion of their gigantic horns, 

 the spiral shape of which seems to paralyze the hardest shock. This, if not a fact, is at least generally believed. It is also not 

 a modern invention, for Clavigero mentions the same, as he heard it from the lips of the California Indians. 



" The horns of the mountain sheep are most formidable weapons fer defence even against larger enemies ; as, for instance, wolf 

 or puma. The nature of the ground where the mountain sheep ranges hardly permits any ambush on the part of the aggressor, 

 because there is no timber or brushwood. To meet a blow of those gigantic herns must be rather a risk of life ; the more so, 

 when an attacked big horn succeeds in driving his antagonist between a rocky wall and his * battering ram.* "—(A. Schott.) 



67. BOS AMEPvICANUS, Gmelin, (p. 682.) American Buffalo. 



No skins of this species were collected by the Boundary Commission, though skulls and 

 skeletons were frequently met with. 





