Type.—Skull and skeleton picked up at Malheur Lake, Oregon, by G. M. Benson in November, 1931; type in United States National Museum.
Distribution.—Perhaps casual in eastern Washington before coming of the white man.
Remarks.—Bison, or buffalo, occurred in southeastern Oregon but disappeared before white men reached the country ([Bailey], 1936: 57). [Gibbs] (1860: 138) was told by an Indian hunter in 1853 that a lost bull had been killed in the Grand Coulee (state of Washington) 25 years before but that "this was an extraordinary occurrence, perhaps before unknown." In the days before horses reached the Indian tribes of eastern Washington and Oregon, wandering bison from herds in Oregon probably strayed into Washington, in somewhat the manner that the moose today stray in from Canada.
Ovis canadensis [Shaw]
Mountain sheep
Description.—The mountain sheep is the size of a small deer. The horns of the males are massive spirals. Those of the females are smaller, curve upward and backward, rarely forming a semicircle. The horns are permanent structures, enlarged each year by growth at the base. Growth is irregular, probably as the result of seasonal reproductive activities. As a result the horns are "ringed" with concentric ridges. The color of the upper parts is dark, grayish brown. The face is paler, yellowish brown. The outer sides of the legs are dark brown. The rump, abdomen, and insides of legs are white.
Mountain sheep of the genus Ovis are abundantly represented in Asia. Two species occur in North America, Ovis dalli in Alaska, and Ovis canadensis in western North America. They range from Alaska south to northern Mexico.
In the past the mountain sheep inhabited most of the eastern Cascade Mountains, the Blue Mountains, Pend Oreille Mountains, and the cliffs of the Columbia River Valley in eastern Washington. They occurred on the eastern or Columbian Plateau side of the river and therefore probably occupied the cliffs of Moses Coulee and the Grand Coulee. Their habitat seems thus to have included rocky areas from the Upper Sonoran to the Hudsonian life-zones. At the present time they are extinct over most of their range. A small band still remains in the extreme northeastern Cascades near Mount Chopaka.
Little has been published concerning the habits of the mountain sheep in Washington. In caves along the Columbia River in Grant County, bones of sheep are found in association with stone arrowheads and other human artifacts. Presumably the sheep were killed and eaten by the Indians.
The history of the mountain sheep in North America is outlined by [Cowan] (1940: 506). The genus is thought to have crossed from Asia to America by the land bridge now under Bering Strait in the early Pleistocene and spread southward through the Rockies. The advance of the glacial ice forced them farther southward and the southern (canadensis) sheep were separated from their relatives farther north. The present differences between the Rocky Mountain and western sheep seem to have resulted from separation by glaciers during Wisconsin Time.