286 THE SHEEP AND ITS COUSINS 



animals on November 30, 1800, near what is now 

 Calgary in southern Alberta, where the Bow River 

 emerges from the first range of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, in, as McGillivray states, longitude 115° 30' 

 west, and latitude 50° north. They found here a 

 small band, and killed a number of them, including 

 a fine old ram. McGillivray recognised the animal 

 as a nondescript, and preserved the skin of the 

 ram to be sent to the Royal Society of London. 



In 1804 the Rocky Mountain bighorn was 

 named Ovts cervina by the French naturalist 

 Desmarest, and almost simultaneously O. canadensis 

 in Shaw and Nodder's Naturalists Miscellany. 

 Consequently, naturalists have been much divided 

 in opinion as to which of these names should be 

 employed for the species ; as there is nothing in 

 the least deer-like about the animal, the second is, 

 however, decidedly preferable to the first. 



The bighorn (inclusive of all the wild sheep 

 that can be included under that name) differs from 

 all the species hitherto noticed in this chapter by the 

 comparative smoothness of the large and massive 

 horns of old rams, in which the transverse wrinkles 

 are replaced almost entirely by pronounced lines 

 of growth ; the outer front angle being strongly 

 developed, but the inner one rounded off. The 

 face-glands are also smaller than in any of the 

 preceding species of wild sheep. In the darker 

 phases there is a large and conspicuous white 



