MAMMALS OF THE MEXICAN BOUNDARY. 235 



dences of its existence in suitable places from southwestern Texas to 

 the mountains of the Coast Eange bordering the Pacific Ocean, 1 was ' 

 unable to examine any skins from the eastward of the Tule Moun- 

 tains, in the Western Desert Tract, though the species Was seen in the 

 Elevated Central and Eastern Desert tracts. From the examination 

 of one skin from San Francisco Mountain, Arizona, and a small 

 series of horns collected in the Dog Mountains, Grant County, New 

 Mexico, and on the Verde River, Arizona, and from the observation 

 of living animals in these regions I am inclined to consider the Big- 

 horn of the Elevated Central Tract to be intermediate in characters 

 between the northern Rocky Mountain form " and that inhabiting 

 the Western Desert Tract, the latter being the vory distinct race 

 nelsoni, described below. For the present, with the scanty material 

 available for study, I prefer to consider the Bighorns of the north- 



" The synonymy of this form is as follows : 



OVIS CANADENSIS Shaw. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN BIGHORN. 



Mountain Ram, of North America Mitchill, New York Medical Repository, 

 1803, p. 237, fig. 



Bilier de Montagne E. Geoffbot de St.-Hilaiee, Annales du Musee d'His- 

 toire Naturelle, II, 1803, pp. 360-363, pi. lx (Canada, lat. 50°; long. 

 115°). 



Ovis canadensis Shaw, Naturalist's Miscellany, XV, pi. dc,\, with text, about 

 Dec, 1803. (A penciled memorandum on the title page of the copy in 

 the Library of Congress indicates that plates dlxxxix to dcxiii were 

 published in 1803. Plate dlxxxix (the first in the volume) is dated 



1803. Plate doxiv is dated 1804. The Intermediate plates are not 

 dated. Pages preceding and following the descriptive text, which is 

 not paged, are watermarked 1803.) — Biuddlph, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 

 1885, pp. 678-684 (reverts to this earlier name than Oris montana, 

 establishing Ovis canadensis in its place). — Mebriam, North American 

 Fauna, No. 3, 1890, pp. 78, 79. 



Ovis cervina Desmakest, Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, XXIV, 



1804, p. 5 (based on the Belier de Montagne of Geoff roy) ; nouv. ed., 

 XXI, 1818, p. 553.— Rafinesque, Am. Month. Mag., I, Oct., 1817, p. 

 436. — Alston, Biologia Centr;\Ii-.\mericana, Mam. 1880, p. 111. — 

 Allen, Bui. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist, VII, 1895, p. 258 (gives important 

 synonymy and attempts to establish Ovis cervina on the basis of the 

 1804 edition of Desmarest's Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 Jbut fails to show that this work antedated the publication of Shaw's 

 Ovis canadensis, the name in current use). 



Ovis ammon Mitchill, New York Medical Repository, X, 1807, p. 35. — Obd, 

 in Guthrie's Geography (2d Am. ed.), II, 1815, pp. 292, 308.— Harlan, 

 F. Amer., 1825, p. 164 (description from Lewis and Clark's speci- 

 mens). — Godman, Am. Nat. Hist, II, p. 328. 



OiJis montana Cuvieb, Rdgne Anim., I, 1817, p. 267 (a name long current, 

 but preoccupied by Ord's Ovis montana, the name which he applied to 



