
538 THE FAUNA OF MONTANA TERRITORY. 
even by them, that it may exist there. Maj. Haller, U.S.A., 
told me that the Indians near Wenatchy river, in the Cas- 
cade Mountains, catch them in the deep snow by rushing 
down upon them from above, on snow-shoes. As they always 
look for danger from below, this mode of surprising them is 
not improbable, and besides, these mountain animals run up 
hill much more easily than down. 
Mountaww Seep (Ovis montana). The Bighorn is com- ` 
mon in the rugged bare hills along the Missouri, from Fort 
Union west, and throughout the Rocky Mountåins to the 
Cœur ďd’Aleñe Range, but since the time of Lewis and Clarke 
seems to have disappeared from the cliffs bordering Snake a 
Columbia rivers, probably on account of the use of fire-arms 
by the Indians. 
Tue Burrato (Bos Americanus). Last summer (1860) 
the Buffalo herd of the upper Missouri was spread from 
Rocky Mountains, near latitude 49° south-east, and we found 
them along the Missouri from its upper Great Bend west to 
about fifty miles above Milk river, but nowhere in great 
numbers. Remains of their skeletons, left about five years 
since, were abundant west of Fort Benton, and I saw one oF 
more old skulls daily in the valley of the Little Blackfoot and 
Hell Gate rivers, quite down to the junction of the Bit yi 
root. Large herds have sometimes visited the west side 
the summit, especially Deer Lodge and St. Mary's valleys 
but not for many years past. If they ever reached the 
lumbia Plains, it was probably by way of Snake rivets ® 
they would scarcely try to cross the Coeur d’Alene Range, : 
where grass is very scanty and the timber very dense. i saw 4 
no difference in the skulls, indicating a different specin? wd a 
“ Mountain Buffalo” of the hunters. (The Bighorn 1s some- 
times called so.) The horns showed that most oe se 1 
mals were very old bulls, being enormously thickened, i 
their lower part scaling off. This accounts for the large = 
> . 
and solitary habits of these “ Mountain” specimens. 


