TYPES OF OREAMNOS.
The first specimens of the mountain goat to be described, came from the Cascade Mountains on the Columbia River in Oregon and of course now stand as the type of Oreamnos montanus, having been first described by Rafinesque in 1817. This subspecies is intermediate in size between the eastern form of American goat, O. m. missoulæ, and the large Canadian O. m. columbianus, and, is characterized by a short but broad skull. The true Oreamnos montanus extends from about the Canadian boundary, south through Washington into Oregon. In the '70's a considerable number were found on Mt. Ranier in Washington, and they still occur on Mt. Baker to the northward. It is absent, however, from the Olympic Mountains, from Vancouver Island and from the southern Cascades in Oregon. Nothing is known of the northern limits of this subspecies, but it probably does not extend very far into British Columbia, merging at that point into O. m. columbianus. The most southerly Oregon records that the writer has been able to obtain is Mt. Jefferson in that State, latitude 44° 40´ north, in approximately the same latitude as the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho.
Probably the only place where the goat exists to-day in the State of Oregon is the mountains in Wallowa County, in the extreme northeast corner of the State, and the animals from that locality are probably to be referred to as O. m. missoulæ. They have long since vanished from Mt. Hood and from the other peaks in the western part of the State, where they once abounded. In the State of Washington they exist in reduced numbers from the Canadian boundary as far south as Mt. Adams, although at the latter point they are possibly now extinct. Throughout the State the frequency of names, such as “goat rocks,” "goat paths," “goat buttes” and “goat creeks,” testify to their early abundance, and they were formerly shot from the decks of steamers on Lake Chelan by hunters who took a wanton delight in seeing the wounded animals fall down the precipitous banks.
In the Mt. Rainier Forest Reserve they are found in small numbers. In the isolated volcanic peaks along the coast the goat is too easily reached to be allowed to survive, and it is probable that before many years the interesting animal will be entirely exterminated in the United States except in the main Rockies.
The Alaskan form, at the extreme western limit of the genus, in the neighborhood of the Mt. St. Elias Alps and the Copper River, was described by Dr. D. G. Elliot, in 1900, as a second and valid species, under the name of Oreamnos kennedyi. It is strongly characterized by the lyrate shape of the horns and certain anatomical features.
These two were the only described forms, until 1904, when the attention of Dr. J. A. Allen, of the American Museum of Natural History, was called by the writer to the great difference in bulk of body and size of horns of the goat of British Columbia, and those of the Bitter Root Mountains in Montana. Upon comparing a number of specimens from the Cascade Mountains, the type locality of Oreamnos montanus, from the Bitter Root Mountains of Montana and Idaho, from the main Rockies in southern British Columbia and from the Schesley Mountains of northern British Columbia, it was found that all these specimens could be divided into three easily distinguishable groups each of subspecific rank.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT