MAMMALS OP THE MEXICAN BOUNDARY. 237 



Habits and local distribution. — Although still ranging through 

 the Upper Austral, Transition, and Boreal zones of the mountains 

 of the Elevated .Central Tract, the mountain sheep has become a 

 scarce animal. It is usually confined to rocky canyons and mountain 

 peaks. On San Francisco Mountain, Arizona, its range reaches .the 

 Arctic- Alpine zone, above timber line. Lieut. A. W. Whipple's ex- 

 pedition obtained sheep at points along the thirty-fifth parallel, in 

 New Mexico and Arizona. 



In Arizona the bighorn has, until very recently, been quite gen- 

 erally distributed in suitable localities, from near sea level to the apex 

 of the San Francisco peaks, the highest land in Arizona, having an 

 altitude of upward of 13,000 feet. In June, 1887, I obtained horns 

 of the mountain sheep at Smiths Big Spring, on San Francisco 

 Mountain. (No. 599, Mearns' collection, now in the American Mu- 

 seum, New York. ) At that time a goodly herd of them was ranging 

 on the mountain. In the neighboring town of Flagstaff I examined a 

 mounted male specimen in the possession of Mr. B. J. Brannan, 

 whose brother had also obtained a specimen from San Francisco 

 Mountain. (One of these was sent to the New Orleans Cotton Expo- 

 sition.) Bighorns frequented the highest peaks of this mountain 

 during the month of June, but in winter they doubtless descend to 

 the lower levels; indeed, it was asserted by an experienced hunter 

 that they abandon the mountain entirely during winter and resort 

 to the neighboring canyon of the Colorado River, where the species 

 is always abundant. Members of our party saw a number of them 

 there in June, 1887; and in November, 1884, the' writer saw the 

 tracks of a large band of them that had recently passed through the 

 midst of the village of the Havasupai Indians, in the canyon of Cata- 

 ract Creek, close to its junction with the Colorado. The Havasupai 

 manufacture dippers and ladles from the horns of the mountain 

 sheep, some of which we collected for the Museum. On November 

 10, 1884, I camped at a spring in the left wall of Cataract Canyon, 

 27 miles above the Havasupai Indian village. The pack mules were 

 suffering from thirst, not having obtained sufficient water at the pre- 

 vious camp, and here the water was found black, stinking, polluted 

 by the carcass of a decaying mountain sheep, so that none of our 

 animals would touch it. Years before. Major Price had .made the 

 only previous military expedition to this canyon. Dr. Elliott Coues, 

 the medical officer, had wandered from the column in search of birds 

 and had become lost. Indian scouts were sent out upon his trail. 

 They, expecting to find him dead from thirst, planned a division of 

 his clothing and equipments, and were sorely disappointed at finding 

 him at one of these small " seep " springs, in the wall of Cataract Creek, 

 serenely lunching upon roasted mountain sheep. We observed bones 



