WILD SHEEP OF ASIA AND AMERICA 285 



King of Spain on October 25, 1597, and was soon 

 joined by Father Francis Maria Piccolo. ... It was 

 in this region that they met with the taye, as re- 

 corded by Piccolo,* the historian of these first 

 attempts to establish missions in what is now Lower 

 California. 



Piccolo called the taye the Californian deer, 

 although he also refers to it as a sheep, on account 

 of its somewhat resembling European sheep in 

 make. 



The typical Rocky Mountain sheep, or bighorn, 

 as it is universally called in its own country, was, 

 however, not discovered by Europeans till a much 

 later date. To quote again from Dr. Allen," it 

 appears that "the first specimen of this sheep 

 known to science was killed and preserved by 

 Duncan McGillivray, an agent of the North-west 

 Fur Company, who accompanied the well-known 

 explorer and surveyor, David Thompson, while 

 making his survey of the upper Bow River country 

 of Canada in the year 1800. McGillivray has left 

 on record definite information as to the time and 

 place of its capture, and a first-hand account of 

 the habits, haunts, and external characters of this 

 now well-known species. It appears from his narra- 

 tive that these two explorers first met with these 



' See Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, vol. xxvi. p. 336, 1708 ; this 

 being a translation of an earlier French account. 

 » Op. cit., p. 2. 



