THE GAME RESOURCES OF ALASKA. 
475 
all the mountains of the interior of Alaska and at present it is absent 
only from those mountains which lie near permanent settlements. It 
prefers the higher altitudes, and in any given group of mountains is 
usually most abundant about the main divide and the higher or more 
central peaks. It does not inhabit, and so far as known never has 
inhabited, the mountains’ of the Alaska Peninsula or the coastal 
slopes of the mountains of southeastern Alaska, but large numbers 
live on the Kenai Peninsula, the Endicott Mountains, Mount Mc¬ 
Kinley, and adjoining parts of the Alaska Range. It still lives in 
small numbers on some of the higher peaks between the Yukon and 
Tanana rivers, but is in great danger of extirpation in this region 
It appears to range regularly on the Arctic slope north of the Endi¬ 
cott Mountains at rather slight altitudes, even to within a few miles 
of the coast. (See PI. LVII and fig. 51.) 
The habits of the white sheep are similar to those of kindred 
species. Their lives for the most part are spent on the wild, exposed, 
and forbidding mountain tops, but they do not hesitate to descend 
into timber. They may even take long journeys, passing all ob¬ 
stacles, swimming rivers, and traveling for miles through heavy 
forests, but their natural home, even during the severities of Arctic 
