1922] Swarth: Birds and Mammals of the Stikine Begion 193 



snowslide. With hind legs flexed and spread well apart, and front legs rigid, 

 almost on his haunches, he slid and wriggled in safety down the dangerous slide, 

 which at the bottom dropped over a precipice. At the top of this cliff he 

 crossed to the solid rock beyond, and then turned to see if I was coming. 



The goat taken was a male, fully mature but not of great age. His 

 weight was estimated at two hundred pounds. This animal has almost 

 none of the long shaggy covering with which we usually associate the 

 species. It is white, just as in winter, but the hair is extremely short. 

 Over much of the body there is no more than a scanty covering 'of 

 tightly curled wool, which presumably would develop later into a dense 

 body covering, completely hidden by the long straight hairs of the 

 winter coat. 



Oreamnos m,ontanus columbianus was described from the Shesley 

 Mountains, in the same general region and some sixty or seventy miles 

 north of the place where our specimen was taken (see Allen, 1904, p. 

 20). Mountain goats occur on the mountains along the mainland 

 coast of southeastern Alaska directly to the westward of this region, 

 and with very little doubt at all suitable places between. Whether or 

 not the subspecies colum,'bianus extends westward to the coast we have 

 not the material to decide, though the specimens at hand suggest 

 otherwise. There are three specimens available from the coast of south- 

 eastern Alaska, an adult female and two young males. The old female 

 has horns that are nearly as widespreading as in a female Oreamnos 

 kennedyi, from Cook Inlet, of about the same age. They are more 

 widespreading than in our adult male from the Telegraph Creek region. 

 These are the only comparisons that it is feasible to make. This mate- 

 rial thus suggests the possibility at least of the existence of a coastal 

 race, kennedyi, as distinct from colum,bianus of the interior. In all 

 probability kennedyi should be regarded as a subspecies of Oreamnos 

 montanus, rather than a distinct species. There is with little doubt 

 sufficiently continuous distribution of mountain goats along the 

 Alaskan coast to insure intergradation between the several described 

 forms, and the goat occurring on the mainland of the Sitkan region 

 may well prove to be referable to kennedyi, though perhaps not 

 exhibiting the characters of that race in their extreme. 



