the Colorado, but a few hundred feet above sea-level, and about the summits of the peaks of Colorado and in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains at elevations of from 10,000 to 13,000 feet. An exception to the fact that the bighorn is usually found on rugged mountains and is most at home on seemingly inaccessible cliffs is furnished by bands which live and appear to thrive amid the Bad Lands along the Missouri River, some 400 miles to the eastward of the Stony Mountains.
The bighorn resembles the wapiti in colour, although it is of a lighter brown, especially in winter. It is clothed with wool beneath the stiff outer coat of hair, and is a true sheep, but larger than any domesticated variety of Ovis. The rams attain a height of at least 3 feet 6 inches at the shoulder, and weigh some 300 or 400 pounds. Both sexes are provided with horns, but those of the male are much the larger, and in the finest examples attain a length of 30 inches, measured along the outer curve, and a circumference at the base of 15 or 16 inches. The most magnificent head ever obtained, so far as the writer has been able to learn, is that of a ram shot in the Selkirk Mountains, the horns of which are 52½ inches in length, measured along the outer curve, and 18½ inches in circumference at the base. These immense horns are used, as in the case of the domestic ram, in fighting, but the widely current statement in reference to the animals alighting on them when jumping from precipices is entirely mythical. The bighorn is a fearless and skilful mountaineer, and will climb or descend precipices by bounding from ledge to ledge where the most reckless hunter dares not follow. Its ability to find a sure footing on even smoothly glaciated rocks is due to the peculiar structure of the feet, which have a rubber-like pad beneath the sharp-pointed and sharp-edged hoofs.
The Mazama or Mountain-Goat.—The companion of the bighorn on the lofty mountains, but even more thoroughly a mountaineer, is the so-called mountain-goat, Aplocerus montanus, which, in spite of its long hair, short curved horns, sturdy legs, bearded chin, and general goat-like appearance,
and more than the goat's ability to climb, is in reality more nearly related to the antelope than it is to the sheep. This alpine antelope, unlike its cousin of the plains, is only at home on dizzy heights, and summer and winter alike lives at timber-line on the mountains or in the alpine gardens adjacent to perpetual snow.
One of the earliest generic names under which it is assumed this alpine antelope was included, namely, Mazama, although rejected by naturalists, has recently been revived and adopted by an enthusiastic mountaineering club in Portland, Oregon, as their name, and is likely to become widely known. Among the hunters and the inhabitants generally of the region where the animal under consideration lives it is termed the mountain-goat, and no protest from naturalists, however well founded, is likely to bring about a change in this connection.
The mazama is entirely white, excepting its hoofs, horns, and narrow lines about the eyes and nostrils, which are black. In general, it is smaller than the bighorn, but bucks have been reported to attain a length of nearly 6 feet and a weight of some 300 or 400 pounds. Its habitat is not only higher on the mountains but more restricted in geographical extent than that of the bighorn. It is said to live about Mount Whitney, the highest summit in the Sierra Nevada, but is unknown farther south; in Colorado it is reported to have been seen on a few of the higher peaks, but its main range begins well to the north of these outlying localities, in the mountains of Montana and Idaho and in the Cascades. To the north of the United States it occurs throughout the higher ranges of British Columbia and in the mountains of southern Alaska as far west at least as Cook Inlet. It is plentiful and as yet undisturbed by hunters on the foot-hills about Mount St. Elias, where the alpine conditions congenial to it occur at an elevation of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the sea. Like all of the larger animals, and especially the herbivores, the bighorn and the mazama are sought by sportsmen, but on account of the ruggedness of the regions they inhabit and their wariness they are likely to survive when most other examples
of "big game" shall have been exterminated. Both the bighorn and the mazama are sought by Indians for food and for their pelts, and their horns are frequently used, especially in Alaska, in the manufacture of spoons. They are practically of no economic importance to white men, although their flesh when young is excellent food, and their fleeces would be of value to the weaver if they could be obtained in sufficient quantity. They serve, however, to entice the sportsman, who is usually an ardent lover of nature, into some of the wildest and grandest regions the continent affords. Their value in this connection is not to be measured in dollars, and strenuous efforts should be made to insure their continuance.
Fig. 31.—Bison at Silver Heights, Winnipeg. (Photograph by William Notman & Son.)