THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
they select and eat the same food. All dwell above timber-line and by 
nature are timid and wild. 
“ Their body measurements, according to age and sex, allowing 
for slight individual variations in size, are practically the same.” 
He then discusses the divergent or close curl of the horns in the various 
races, and proves that the divergent type which was originally given as a 
definite character in O. c. stonei has no substance in fact, for in this sheep 
narrow curled horns are just as common as divergent ones, and this I can 
corroborate from an examination of over fifty examples. On the Pelly 
River the divergent type is rare but certainly exists, whilst it is common 
in the same sheep from the Pelly, Stewart and Ogilvy Mountains. ‘‘What 
is true of the comparative divergence of the horns,” says Mr Sheldon 
(id., p. 300), ‘‘is equally true of their comparative length, circumference 
and shape.” 
He also considers that in the case of these ‘‘weak sub-species” the 
‘‘differences of skull characters are slight,” if, in fact, they exist at all. 
Broadly speaking, therefore, all the sheep of Alaska are uniformly 
white except occasional specimens between the Yukon and Tanana 
Rivers, while a few tinted ones are found at the head of the Stewart and 
Macmillan Rivers and in Southern Alaska. They extend south of Atlin, 
on the west, and east to the Nahanni River (a northern branch of the 
Liard); northwards they go to the Arctic coast, where mountains are 
found between the north of the Mackenzie and Point Barrow. South of the 
Stickine the sheep are all dark, with occasional specimens having whitish 
faces and necks; and further to the south, about the Skeena Mountains, 
they are darkest of all. 
The general distribution of the true bighorns is Western and North- 
Western America. They are found throughout the whole range of the Rocky 
Mountains both on the eastern and western slopes. They occur in all the 
smaller mountains from British Columbia to Southern California and 
southwards as already detailed. Allied races also occur in the eastern 
hemisphere, the Kamchatka bighorn being very closely related to the 
American races. The bighorn is found as far south as Northern Mexico, 
where the race is small and pale in colour. 
By far the finest examples of the typical race were found in Colorado, 
where they are now verging on extinction, in South and Central Wyoming, 
Northern Montana and Alberta. To-day they are probably more numerous 
and finer in the roughest mountains of Alberta, taking Banff as a centre, 
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