Musk-Ox, Bison, Sheep and Goat

In the front hall of a certain club there used to hang—and still hangs, for all I know—the head of a white goat. I stood near it one day in 1894 or 1895, while two gentlemen were looking at it. One had hunted in our West, and was asked by the other what animal this was. He replied with certainty, “A mountain sheep.” It was no business of mine, and I did not correct him. But how inveterate and singular was the confusion! for these two wild animals do not resemble each other a particle more than do their domestic namesakes. In the hall of the club that day I did not know that, ninety years before, the self-same blunder had been made and written down for the first time, and that we were still inheriting its consequences.

On September twenty-six, 1805, Meriwether Lewis, quite inconveniently sick, was, with his equally inconveniently sick comrades, camped for the purpose of building canoes. They lay at the confluence of the north fork with the main stream of that river which Idaho now most often calls the Clearwater, and which the Indians then called the Kooskooskee. They had come overland a great way—two thousand miles—walking and riding. They had lately been high among the cold snows, and they were now abruptly plunged in the flat climate of the plains. Heat and the copious new food made every mother’s son of them ill. But a few days before this, and they had been sparingly serving out rations of horse flesh to keep together soul and body; now the Indians have given them all the salmon they can swallow, and taught them to eat the camass, a precarious vegetable. In the language of Doctor Coues (the admirable annotator of the 1894 edition, one can hardly imagine a better and honester piece of work): “Having been neither frozen nor starved quite to death—having survived camass roots, tartar emetic, and Rush’s pills (the famous Dr. Rush of Philadelphia,) the explorers have reached navigable Columbian waters.…” I could quote from this splendid book forever. It is our American Robinson Crusoe. Somebody, no doubt, will grind it into a historical novel; but no novel, no matter how big a sale it has, can spoil the journal of Lewis and Clark. Well, at this sick camp, while they’re making ready to float to Astoria, enter the white goat. It is his first recorded appearance.

Says Gass: “There appears to be a kind of sheep in this country, besides the ibex or mountain sheep, and which have wool on. I saw some of the skins, which the natives had, with wool four inches long, and as fine, white, and soft as any I had ever seen.”

Here, you perceive, is the error, appearing simultaneously with the goat.

These sheep “live,” says the text in another place, “in greater numbers on that chain of mountains which forms the commencement of the woody country on the coast and passes the Columbia between the falls and rapids.” Accurate in everything save the name.

Next comes the observation (William Dunbar and Dr. Hunter) written on the Columbia River near the Dalles: “We here saw the skin of a mountain sheep, which they say lives among the rocks in the mountains; the skin was covered with white hair; the wool was long, thick, and coarse, with long, coarse hair on the top of the neck and on the back, resembling somewhat the bristles of a goat.”

This time, you see, they are on the very edge of getting the thing straight. But no; they recede again, after the following which seems to promise complete clearing up:—

“A Canadian, who had been much with the Indians to the westward, speaks of a wool-bearing animal larger than a sheep, the wool much mixed with hair, which he had seen in large flocks.”

April ten, 1806, the party is on its return journey. It has successfully wintered on the coast, and has now come up the Columbia again, fifty miles above Vancouver.

“While we were at breakfast one of the Indians offered us two sheepskins for sale; … the second was smaller … with the horns remaining.… The horns of the animal were black, smooth, and erect; they rise from the middle of the forehead, a little above the eyes, in a cylindrical form, to the height of four inches, where they are pointed.”

Here there is no mistake about the mistake; he describes a goat and calls it a sheep. Why he should do this when he had seen the bighorn constantly during his journey up the Missouri may possibly be thus explained: He says that he did not think the bighorn much like a sheep, and so, perhaps, the goat did not strike him as much like a goat; we know it happens to be an antelope. But however we account for this original mixing of names, it is easy to perceive how good a start the mixing got; and after reading the text of the old confusion, is it not odd and interesting to trace it down through the years, down through Yancey, to the front hall of the club? to find it cropping up among all sorts and conditions of men, now in a city and now on top of the Wind River Mountains, where it used to perplex me?

And this is only the popular side of it; the scholars have been just as mixed as Yancey. The scientific side of the story is picturesquely seen through the dynasty of Latin names successively lavished upon the goat.

The country at large first heard of the goat in 1806, when Thomas Jefferson accompanied his message to Congress about Lewis and Clark’s exploration with various documents, and among these the observations of William Dunbar and Dr. Hunter. Nine years later the eminent George Ord gave to the animal his first academic baptism, and he appeared as Ovis montana. Pretty soon M. de Blainville seems to have called him Antilope americana, and Rupicapra americana. By 1817 he was known as Mazama Sericea—which is wandering pretty wide of the family. Four years more, and he is plain Rocky Mountain sheep. Next follow Capra montana, Antilope lanigera, Capra Americana, and Haplocerus montanus. This last was beginning to look permanent, when it was discovered that somebody had for some time been styling the goat by a well-devised appellation, to wit, Oreamnus montanus. He goes by that now; and it may be doubted if any thief has more frequently employed an alias than this probably blameless animal. Such is the story of the confusion begun—we can only guess why—by Lewis and Clark, and not cleared up until our own day.

The goat is an animal far less wary than the sheep. His watch is concentrated upon approaches from below. All the hunter has to do is to get above him, to make at once for the summit of the ridge which he proposes to hunt, and the unsuspecting creature will never give you a thought. Upon my word, it is inexcusable to kill him, except for a specimen in a collection; he is so handsome, so harmless, and so stupid! And in his remoter haunts, where the nature of man is still a closed book to him, he “thinketh no evil”; he will stand looking at the hunter with a sedate interest in his large, deep brown eyes. The tenderfoot sportsman, it seems, will generally make his beginnings as a maniac. Suddenly confronted with a herd of wild animals, he frantically pumps his repeating rifle, hypnotized by the glut of destruction. Luckily, he is apt, in his excitement, to miss. His desire is for no one special trophy, but for a hot killing of all in sight. If we are not to blame him for this flare of blind brute instinct, for heaven’s sake don’t let us praise the performance! The best that can possibly be said for it is to call it the seamy side of masculinity; and the seamy side of masculinity fits cowardice like a glove. I am speaking from the sinner’s bench; and long back in the years (not so long materially, but miles and miles every other way) I see one or two spots of shame. To-day, my wish is to photograph the game, and let him go his way in peace.

With my rifle I carried a kodak among the goats. The kodak and the rifle made a discomfortable pair now and then. For instance:—

“Saturday twelfth (November) four and one-half hours’ climb up opposite ridge, so as to get above goat seen yesterday. Snow six and eight inches deep on top.” This was a day that I carried both instruments, and the rocks continually required the use of both hands. Well, I got the goat that I wanted with my rifle. I took the kodak home with one hundred pictures of my very long, hard, interesting journey. It was the year that the company’s films were bad, and I drew one hundred blanks; there was not the semblance of an image upon a single one. The same mischance had attended the Greely expedition, and I had not travelled as far as they did; so you see my mouth must utter no complaints. No; my mileage fell short of the Greely expedition; but no goat will ever tempt me through such adventures again. Alas, that a man should come to shrink from discomforts which once—but let me tell you about some of them.

Because nothing but good fellowship and kindness were shown me there, I suppress the name of the town at the railroad’s end where I waited from Saturday till Monday for the north-bound stage. It was Saturday, October ninth, my journal reminds me.

“They gave me a room.… I was glad to see as little of it as possible. I washed in the public trough and basin which stood in the office between the saloon and the dining room; and I spent my time either in the saloon watching a game of poker that never ceased, or in wandering about in the world outside. A Chinaman named Madden … played poker and of course lost to his American friends, … swearing in the most ludicrous jargon.… Yet he was good-natured … the men seemed to like him … at night he returned to the never ending game and lost some more.… I went to my room to go to bed, turned down the bed clothes, and saw there, not what I feared, but cockroaches to the number of several thousand, I should think. They scampered frantically, jostling each other like any other crowd. Then I lifted one pillow and watched more cockroaches hurry under the neighboring pillow for shelter. Then I saw that the walls, ceiling, and floor were all quivering and sparkling with cockroaches. So I told the landlord downstairs. I said that if he had no other room, I would throw my camp blankets on the office table and sleep there if he had no objection. He was sympathetic, and explained that the cockroaches must have come up from the kitchen which was below my room. This was Saturday night, and every Saturday night the cook put powder in the kitchen; so that must have sent them up. This explanation was given me in a voice full of condolence. And I replied that very likely this was how they came and that sleeping in bed with so many at a time would be impossible. He entirely agreed with me. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘cockroaches is hell.’ …

“So I unrolled my blankets and the landlord helped me make my bed on his office table, lifting the inkstands and newspapers for me.… I went to sleep, hearing the game of poker in the adjoining room, the gobbling of Madden when he lost, and the hoarse merriment of the other men at his gibberish.

“Sunday.… This morning the game was still going on, but Madden had retired about four o’clock a loser. The bar-tender, sweeping the office, waked me, and I arose and made a toilet, as usual, in the public trough.”

The retrospect fills me with merriment—and regret that it’s all over for ever and ever; and the goat does not live for whose sake I would do it again.

It is hard not to yield to further temptation, not to transcribe from that diary of 1892 much more about the appearance and customs of the strange wild country through which I now passed on my way to the goat. Some of the landscape was the worst, the forlornest, the most worthless that I know, far outstripping Nevada in sheer meanness, and as desolate as Arizona, without Arizona’s magic splendor and fascination. Great deserts without grandeur, great valleys without charm, great rocks without dignity, mere lonely ugliness everywhere; that is the Big Bend country; and the river Columbia itself, when you finally descend to it from the parched bare dust and the strewn black boulders of the table-land, is a sweeping, sullen, shadeless flood, the most unlovely river that ever I have seen.

I like, when I can, to bring support to my opinions. On a later day, in the middle of the Big Bend, I came upon a desolate sign-post, placed there no doubt to cheer up the wayfarer’s discouraged heart. This post announced that Central Ferry was thirty-five miles distant; and below this a wayfarer had scrawled his personal comment:—

Forty-five miles to water.

And a subsequent wayfarer had added:—

Seventy-five miles to wood.

And a final wayfarer:—

Two and one-half miles to hell.

Ah, the dauntless, invaluable spirit of man! Those few words scrawled by a hand that I should like to shake, made the desert blossom with humor, and I continued on my journey with a smiling heart.

Three nights out from the cockroaches, and I was sleeping in the open, among pleasant hills. An old ragged fiddler, with hair hanging grizzled to his shoulders, had kept me listening late to all sorts of old-fashioned tunes and dances. He had fiddled his way across our continent, and had taken his lifetime to do so. Here he was, with silvering hair, up in the Cascade Mountains. I spread my blankets a hundred yards from his cabin, where he lived alone. He was perfectly blithe-hearted and perfectly penniless. I don’t know his name; I never saw him but that once; I suppose he is dead; but his discourse and his fiddle gave me an evening of entertainment over which I still sometimes dwell. Had I found no goat, the characters that I met, such as he, would have rewarded my excursion. But all things came to me. After some vain trips, whence I returned empty handed from fairly rough camping, on Wednesday, November 2, the diary reads, “One of my particular long-cherished wishes is accomplished, and I have seen and killed a mountain goat.” On the next day a second head and hide hung in our very snug camp. These first two were males, and they served as a basis for the description that I have attempted to draw earlier in this chapter. It was while we sat, my companionable guide and I, skinning the second goat, that we held a conversation which I must here record.

How we ever fell upon such a subject as the royal family of England, I do not remember; but camping in the wilderness uses up subjects, and leaves you with a steadily narrowing choice each day; and T—, who took an illustrated paper, observed to me that he had always rather liked “that chap Lorne.” This was how he phrased it; his language about some of the others held less of compliment.

Now I had happened, not long before this, to read of a distressing contretemps that had befallen the procession during the Queen’s jubilee, and I reminded T— of this; but it was new to him. So I told him that while the crowned heads were proceeding in state through London streets with the eyes of the civilized world watching them with admiration, the Marquis of Lorne’s horse kicked up. It was a horse that required a better rider than the Prince of Wales had considered the marquis to be, for he had warned him against the animal beforehand. But the marquis preferred to ride him. And so the horse kicked up, and off fell the marquis, right in the middle of the Queen’s jubilee.

T— looked at me and said nothing. I was therefore left uncertain if it came home to the mind of the mountaineer that this royal progress, this historic and panoplied moment, was a bad one for a nobleman to select to tumble off his horse in. I continued:—

“I believe that the Queen, upon seeing the accident, sent somebody.”

“Where?” said T—.

“To the marquis. She probably called the nearest King and said, ‘Frederick, Lorne’s off. Go and see if he’s hurt.’”

“‘And if he ain’t hurt, hurt him,’” added T—, speaking for the Queen. So I perceived that he had given the situation its full value.

After this second day of success, storm and snow beat down upon us, a blinding day, keeping us in camp. More storms followed, and no more goat; and we had to shoot a horse which had “cast” himself, being entangled in his rope, and so frozen as he lay helpless overnight in the heavy snow. We left these mountains and departed to others in search of a herd of goat; I wished a female and kid, and we seemed to have lighted upon a resort of old solitary males. Eight days after the second goat we sighted our herd, and this occasioned an experience more enlightening.

I feel confident that those who have done much hunting of big game have sometimes heard such words as these: “This mountain used to have a bunch of sheep on it all the time; three hundred sheep;” or, “Just about here last season I ran into a band of twelve hundred elk;” or, “I passed two thousand antelope on the flat yesterday.” The person who says this to you will have been your own guide, or some visitor to camp who is comparing notes and exchanging anecdotes. I, at any rate, have listened many times to such assertions; and now and then I have been tempted to observe (for instance) in reply: “Two thousand antelope! When you’d counted nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, I should think you’d have been too tired to go on.” But these are temptations that I have resisted. I think, too, that the men believed what they said—in a general way. But here with the goat was a famous opportunity. We could see them clearly; they were across a cañon from ourselves, a mile or so away; they were lying down, or standing, some eating, some slowly moving about a little; they were in crowds, and in smaller groups, and by ones and twos, changing their positions very leisurely; and they seemed numberless; they were up and down the hill everywhere. Getting to them this day was not possible, since most of the day was already gone, and we were high up on an opposite mountain side.

“There’s a hundred thousand goat!” exclaimed T—; and I should have gone home asseverating that I had seen at least hundreds.

“Let’s count them,” said I. We took the glasses and did so. There were thirty-five.

From these thirty-five during the next two days I completed with no trouble, save hard climbing, my tally of desired specimens,—an adult male and female, and a kid, for my own keeping, with two males to give away to friends. And I learned a little more about the goat.

The female is lighter built than the male, and with horns more slender—a trifle. And (to return to the question of diet) we visited the pasture where the herd had been, and found no sign of grass growing, or grass eaten; there was no grass on that mountain. The only edible substance was a moss, tufted, stiff, and dry to the touch. The largest horns at the base measured six inches in circumference, and twenty-one and a half inches from one tip down to the skull and so across and up to the other tip. I also learned that the goat is safe from predatory animals. With his impenetrable hide and his disembowelling horns, he is left by the wolves and mountain lions respectfully alone. And T— told me of a mother goat’s energy. A prospector had in early summer captured a kid still too young to run much. Its mother saw him taking it to camp, ran after him, chased him in full sight of his comrades so hotly that he had to drop her child, and she got it back! I have said by inference, but must definitely state, that the kids are dropped in May and June.

To the sum of our knowledge about the Oreamnus montanus, the gift of a subspecies has lately been offered; but acceptance of this gift would at present, I think, be premature. It depends on one’s idea of the number of facts needful in daily life to justify a generalization. For instance, if you should read in the paper that one person died of diphtheria last week in New York, it would not prevent your going to that city; but if you read that five hundred had died in a week, you might decide not to take your children there for the season,—and this would be the result of a justifiable generalization. The rule is nowise different in genuine science. This new variety of goat has been based upon a single specimen, and only the dried skull at that! Because the horns were a few inches longer and spread a few inches wider than the average, and because there were certain differences in measurement of the jaw, is scarce adequate proof that these variations were not a distortion, congenital or the result of accident. We have seen people with squints and with club-feet; we have also been to the circus, yet we do not make subspecies for the Kentucky giant and the bearded lady. But that little ache for self-perpetuation, for some sort of permanence in this forgetting world, throbs in many hearts, and since we are all trying to affix our names to something that will hand them down to the succeeding generations, why not tie them to Oreamnus and Ovis? And so, reader, you have the pleasing vision of our zoölogists, riding down to posterity upon the backs of sundry subspecies of goat and sheep.

These animals, like all our Western big game, are disappearing. It is not (as the political Western loud-talker has so frequently shouted) the Eastern “tenderfoot” who is responsible for this destruction; it is the Westerner himself, quietly breaking the laws he made, and killing (to take one recent example) dozens of bull elk out of season in Jackson’s Hole, Wyoming, merely to sell the two teeth known as “tushes,” and leaving the rest of the carcass to rot on the hills. That is the real man who is destroying our big game, just as he is wiping out our forests. Left in his hands, the face of our continent would presently look like a burnt house. Two years before I hunted the goat, the deer in those mountains came down in herds to stare at the new settlers—who shot them from their cabin doors for fun. The deer are scarce enough now.

The Yellowstone Park is a sanctuary for buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, and sheep. There (if anywhere) our big game have a chance of surviving. I have never heard of goat as existing in this sanctuary; but good news comes lately that the sheep are thriving upon Mt. Evarts. Let me suggest to the commandant that he take steps to secure some goat from the Saw Tooth Range—or anywhere he best can—and try the interesting experiment of breeding the animal in the Yellowstone Park.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT

(Haplocerus montanus[16])

This is one of the very few mammals that are permanently white or whitish at all seasons, and although commonly termed a goat, it really belongs to the same group as the serows, which it closely resembles in the form and color of the horns. In winter the hair is very long, and pure white in color; along the back it is erect, and much elongated on the withers and haunches, so as to give to the animal the appearance of possessing a pair of humps. The summer coat is comparatively short, and has a yellowish tinge. Height at shoulder just short of 3 feet; weight from 180 to 300 pounds.

Distribution.—North America, throughout the Rocky Mountains, from about latitude 36° in California at least as far north as latitude 60°. By American naturalists the proper generic name of the animal is considered to be Oreamnus instead of Haplocerus.

Measurements of Horns

FOOTNOTES

INDEX

• Age indicated by rings on rams’ horns, 208 n.
• Alaska, buffalo range as extending to, 123.
• Fossil remains of musk-oxen found in, 85.
• Mountain sheep in, 176, 181 n., 223-224, 226, 246.
• Remains of buffaloes found in, 123-124.
• Rumors of musk-oxen in, 85-93.
• White goat found in, 246, 250, 275.
• Alaskan bighorn [Ovis Canadensis dalli], 176, 181 n., 223-224, 226, 246.
• Alces [Moose], 120.
• Alleghanies, the, eastern boundary of buffalo range, 120.
• Allen, Professor J. A., 79, 80.
• Monograph on American bisons by, 119.
• Animals, attachment of, to one locality, 138-146.
• Antelope, white goat an, 232.
• Antelope-hunting on horses, 197.
• Antilope americana, white goat termed, 259.
• Antilope lanigera, 259.
• Arctic islands, musk-oxen on, 51, 60, 85, 93.
• Argalis, Asiatic, mountain sheep distinguished from, 223.
• Arizona, mountain sheep in, 247.
• Arkansas, musk-ox skull found in, 85.
• Audubon, J. J., 122, 147.
• “Missouri River Journal” quoted, 157-159.
• Aurochs, European bison called, 111.
• Aylmer Lake, musk-ox killed at, 94.
• Babiche, 41, 67.
• Bache Peninsula, musk-oxen killed on, 76-79.
• Bad Lands, mountain sheep in the, 176.
• “Barren Ground of Northern Canada,” W. Pike’s, 47.
• Barren Grounds, hunting in, 17-29.
• Physical character of, 34-35.
• Route for best reaching, 50-51.
• Snowfall in, 35.
• Bear River Valley, buffalo formerly abundant in, 125.
• Bedson, S. L., experiments in breeding buffalo by, 148.
• Bent, George, 128.
• Bent, Colonel William, 128.
• Berlin, live musk-ox in, 103.
• Big Bend country, description of, 264.
• Bighorn, American [Ovis canadensis], 223-224.
• See Mountain sheep.
• Alaskan [Ovis canadensis dalli], 176, 181 n., 223-224, 226, 246.
• “Biological Survey of Mount Shasta,” 250.
• Birds, attachment of, to certain localities, 142.
• Bison, American [Bos bison], 111-166.
• Mountain, 126, 135-136.
• Points distinguishing, from European bison, 165.
• Prairie [Bos bison typicus], 165.
• Reported relation of musk-ox to, 75.
• See Buffaloes.
• Bitter Root Mountains, white goat found in, 275.
• Blackfeet Indians, white buffalo skin dedicated to Sun by, 127.
• Blainville, M. de, 259.
• Bodfish, Captain H. H., 93, 103.
• Bonneville, Captain, on buffaloes in Bear River Valley, 125.
• Bos bison athabascæ [Wood bison], 117, 123, 165.
• Bos bison typicus [Prairie bison], 165.
• British Columbia, mountain sheep in, 225, 226.
• White goat in, 231, 250, 275.
• Brown, Arthur, on southern range of white goat, 247.
• Brush, absence of, from Barren Grounds, 35-36.
• “Buck-fever,” 203-207.
• Buffaloes, agility of, 135-136.
• Attachment to one locality, 140-146.
• Battles between males, 131-132.
• Bulls, 129-132.
• Butchering of, by Indians, described, 157-159.
• Calves, 132-135, 146-147.
• Color of, 126-128, 132-133.
• Cross-breeding of, 147-150.
• Description, 165.
• Domestication, 147-150.
• Extermination of, 111-119.
• Habits, 129-130.
• Hair, 165.
• Height, 165.
• Herds of, 117, 161-163.
• Hides, 130-131.
• Horns, 165.
• Indians hold sacred, 127-129.
• Methods of hunting, 150-156.
• Migrations, 137-142.
• Panics among, 136-137.
• Range, 119-126, 165.
• Rubbing-stones, 131, 163.
• Rutting season, 131-132.
• Superstitions concerning, 127-130.
• “Surround” method of hunting, 150-156.
• Trails, 138.
• Weight, 165.
• Young, 132-135, 146-147.
• See Bison.
• Buffalo-running, 159-161.
• California, absence of white goat from, 244-245.
• California mountain sheep [Ovis canadensis nelsoni], 223, 226.
• Calves, buffalo, 132-133, 146-147.
• Of musk-oxen, 100, 103, 132-133.
• Camping in Barren Grounds, 64-69.
• Canoes, musk-ox hunting in, 61-62.
• Cape Bryant, musk-oxen killed at, 93.
• Capote, caribou-skin, 55.
• Capra americana, white goat called, 259.
• Capra montana, 259.
• Caribou, course of migration, in Barren Grounds, 44, 47-48.
• Cervus canadensis [Elk], 120.
• Chamois, relation of white goat to, 232.
• Charging, false reputation of musk-oxen for, 73-75.
• Cheyenne Indians, white buffalo skins dedicated to Sun by, 127.
• Coffee a luxury in the North, 50.
• Cogmolik Indians, 92.
• Colorado, buffalo-horns from, 166.
• Colorado Cañon, mountain sheep in, 247.
• Copenhagen, live musk-ox in, 105.
• Corsica, the moufflon of, 182.
• Coues, Dr. Elliott, 256.
• Dakota, disappearance of mountain sheep from, 178-179.
• Deer-hunting on horses, 197.
• District of Columbia, buffaloes reported as once found in, 120-121.
• Dodge, Colonel, 115, 133, 161.
• Dogs, question of shipping, into the Barren Grounds, 41-42.
• Scarcity of, in North Country, 38-39.
• See Sledge-dogs.
• Domestication of buffaloes, 147-150.
• Drought, buffaloes driven from Mississippi by, 121.
• Duffel, the, defined, 39.
• Duke of Bedford, live musk-ox owned by, 103.
• Dunbar, William, 257, 259.
• Dung of musk-ox, 100.
• Earl of Lonsdale, musk-ox horns owned by, 99-100.
• Elk [Cervus canadensis], 120.
• Slaughter of, at Jackson’s Hole, Ky., 273.
• Elk-hunting on horses, 197.
• Equipment for Barren Ground expedition, 53-54.
• Europe, fossil remains of musk-oxen found in, 85.
• Specimens (live) of musk-ox in, 103.
• Ewe and lamb, Wister’s experience with, 210-222.
• Feeding, problem of, in Barren Grounds, 41-42.
• Firth, John, 91.
• Flesh of musk-oxen, 100-103.
• Flowers in the Barren Grounds, 62.
• Fort Resolution, 39, 50.
• Fossil remains of musk-oxen, 85.
• Franz Josef Land, musk-oxen unknown in, 93.
• Fremont, J. C., on western range of buffaloes, 125.
• Fur, color of, of musk-oxen, 80, 104.
• Gass, 175, 179, 256.
• Gaudet, Hudson’s Bay Company post factor, 53.
• Goat, relation between sheep and, 182.
• See White goat.
• Grease, craving for, in the North, 47.
• Great Lakes northern boundary of buffalo range, 121.
• Greenland, musk-oxen in, 51, 79-80, 85.
• Green River, buffaloes found on tributaries of, 125.
• Grinnell Land, fossil remains of musk-oxen in, 85.
• Musk-oxen of, 79-80.
• Haggerty, Captain, 90.
• Hair of white goat, 239, 240-241, 257.
• Haplocerus montanus [Rocky Mountain goat], 231, 259, 274.
• See White goat.
• Harlan’s musk-ox [Ovibos bombifrons], 76, 85.
• Headgear in Barren Ground hunting, 33-34.
• Heads of musk-oxen, 99-100.
• Henry, Alexander, Journal of, 118, 161-162.
• Hides, of buffaloes, 130-131.
• White goat, 241.
• Hodgson, Mr., Hudson’s Bay Company trader, 91.
• Hoofs of white goat, 239-240.
• Hornaday, W. T., 120-121, 148, 165.
• Horns, of mountain sheep, 181 n.
• Musk-oxen’s, 76, 98-100.
• Rings on rams’, 208 n.
• White goat’s, 239.
• Horses, antelope-hunting on, 197.
• Buffalo-hunting on, 153-155.
• Deer-hunting on, 197.
• Sheep-hunting on, 192-193.
• Hostility between sheep and goat, 233-237, 245-246.
• Hudson’s Bay Company posts, 37.
• Hunter, Dr., 257, 259.
• Hunting seasons in Barren Grounds, 44-48, 50-52.
• Idaho, white goat in, 247, 250.
• India, sheep found in, 182.
• Indians, Alaskan, 90, 91, 92.
• For Barren Ground hunting, 52-53.
• Buffaloes formerly sacred to, 127.
• Methods of, in hunting musk-oxen, 47-49.
• Slaughter of buffalo by, 157-159.
• Innuits, musk-ox hunting by, 60-61.
• Jackson’s Hole, elk-killing at, 273.
• Jones, C. J., experiments in breeding buffalo by, 148.
• Kamchatka, sheep found in, 182.
• Kentucky, buffaloes formerly in, 122.
• Domestication of buffaloes in, 147.
• Skull of musk-ox found in, 85.
• Kids of white goat, 271.
• Knife for musk-ox hunting, 67.
• Kodak, hunting with a, 261.
• Kogmolik Indians, 92.
• Kookpugmioot Indians, 92.
• Lambs of mountain sheep, 208-222.
• “Land of Little Sticks,” 17, 36.
• Laramie Plains, buffaloes on the, 124, 125.
• Lewis, Meriwether, 175-176, 245, 255-257.
• Confusion of goat and sheep by, 251, 255-260.
• Livingston, Mont., mountain sheep seen at, 171-173, 183-184.
• London, live musk-ox in, 103.
• Loucheaux Indians, 91.
• Lydekker, Professor R., 75, 79.
• “The Royal Natural History” of, 246.
• Mackenzie River, musk-oxen not found west of, 86-93.
• Maclaine of Lochbuie, the, horns of sheep owned by, 224.
• Maps, mistakes in, 244-245.
• Mazama Sericea, white goat named, 259.
• Mexico, mountain sheep in, 181 n., 247.
• Migrations, buffalo, 137-142.
• Caribou, in Barren Grounds, 44, 47-48.
• Mississippi, buffaloes formerly in, 121.
• “Missouri River Journal,” Audubon’s, quoted, 157-159.
• Moccasins essential in Barren Ground outfit, 39.
• Montana, bison horns from, 166.
• Mountain sheep in, 225, 226.
• White goat in, 250, 275.
• Moore, Francis, “Voyage to Georgia” of, 121.
• Moose [Alces], 120.
• Mosquitoes in Barren Grounds, 44.
• Moufflon, the, of Corsica, 182.
• Mt. Evarts, sheep on, 273.
• Mountain bison, 126, 135-136.
• Mountain sheep [American bighorn, Ovis canadensis], 171-226.
• Color, 179-180.
• Description, 179-183, 223-224.
• Distribution, 176, 224.
• Habitat, 199, 246-247.
• Height, 224.
• Hide, 179.
• Horns, 223-225.
• Hostility to goat, 233-237, 245-246.
• Keenness of sight, 219.
• Lambs, 208-222.
• Method of hunting, 197-199.
• Range, 176, 224.
• Rutting season, 184, 208.
• Species and subdivisions, 180-182.
• Weight, 224.
• White goat and, 233-237, 245-246.
• White variety [Ovis dalli], 181, 201.
• Munn, Henry Toke, 47.
• Musk-ox of Barren Grounds [Ovibos moschatus], 17-106.
• Action when attacked, 59-60, 73-75.
• Appearance, 73.
• Calves, 100, 103, 130-131.
• Dung of, 100.
• Flesh, 100, 103.
• Fur, 97-98, 104-105.
• Genus, 75-80.
• Herds of, 97.
• Hides not valuable, 52.
• Horns, 98-100, 104, 106.
• Inaccessibility of, 50.
• Method of hunting, 56-69.
• Origin (reputed), 70.
• Permit necessary for hunting, 51.
• Range, 76, 79-80, 85-94, 105.
• Size, 94, 105.
• Specimens (live), 103.
• National Park, Colorado, buffaloes in, 117-118.
• See Yellowstone Park.
• Noonitagmiott Indians, 90.
• North Platte River, buffaloes on tributaries of, 126.
• Olympic Range, white goat not found in, 250.
• Ord, George, 259.
• Oreamnus montanus [Rocky Mountain goat], 231, 259, 274.
• Oregon, absence of white goat from, 250.
• Ovibos bombifrons [Harlan’s musk-ox], 76, 85.
• Ovibos moschatus [Barren Ground and Greenland type of musk-ox], 76, 80, 82, 83, 104-105.
• Ovibos pearyi, 80.
• Ovibos wardi, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 83, 104-105, 106.
• Ovis canadensis [American bighorn], 180-181, 208, 223-224.
• See Mountain sheep.
• Ovis canadensis auduboni, 181.
• Ovis canadensis dalli [Alaskan bighorn], 176, 181 n., 223-224, 226, 246.
• Ovis canadensis nelsoni [Californian sheep], 223, 224.
• Ovis canadensis stonei, 223.
• Ovis canadensis typica [Rocky Mountain sheep], 223, 259.
• Ovis cervina, 181.
• Ovis dalli, 181, 201.
• Ovis fannini [Saddleback sheep], 181-182, 213.
• Ovis mexicana, 181.
• Ovis montana, 259.
• Ovis nelsoni, 181, 187.
• Ovis stonei, 177, 181.
• Panics among buffaloes, 136-137.
• Pawnee Indians, buffalo skins sacred to, 127.
• Peary, Lieutenant, musk-ox captured by, 105.
• Musk-oxen killed by, 76-79, 93.
• Pemmican, from dried buffalo meat, 156.
• Scarcity of, in the North, 49.
• Philadelphia, white goat in Zoölogical Gardens at, 231, 237-238.
• Piccolo, Padre, 250.
• Pike, Warburton, 47, 62, 74, 94.
• Musk-ox heads owned by, 100.
• Pine, patches of, in Land of Little Sticks, 36.
• Platte River, buffaloes on tributaries of, 125-126.
• Prairie bison (Bos bison typicus), 165.
• Protection, government, of musk-oxen, 51.
• Provision question in musk-ox hunting, 36-38.
• Provisions in Barren Grounds, 62-63.
• Rae, J., Hudson’s Bay Company factor, 99.
• Railroads, effect of, on buffaloes, 113-116.
• Ram seen at Livingston, Mont., 171-173, 183-184.
• “Records of Big Game,” R. Ward’s, 104, 165, 223-224, 274.
• Red Desert Country, buffaloes in, 126.
• Red River, buffaloes on the, 162.
• Red River half-breeds, buffalo hunts of, 117, 154-155.
• Rings on rams’ horns, 208 n.
• Robinson, John (“Uncle Jack Robinson”), 124.
• Rocky Mountain goat [Haplocerus montanus or Oreamnus montanus], 231, 259, 274.
• See White goat.
• Rocky Mountain sheep [Ovis canadensis typica], 223, 259.
• “Royal Natural History, The,” Lydekker’s, 246, 247.
• Rubbing-stones, buffaloes’, 131, 163.
• Rupicapra americana, white goat termed, 259.
• Rutting season, buffaloes’, 131-132.
• Mountain sheep’s, 184, 208.
• Saddleback sheep [Ovis fannini], 181-182, 213.
• Salt Lake Valley, buffaloes in, 124.
• Salvatierra, Padre de, 250.
• Saw Tooth Range, white goat in, 247.
• Schwatka, Frederick, 60, 61, 93.
• Serows, Rocky Mountain goat member of same group as, 274.
• Sheep. See Mountain sheep.
• Shoshone Indians, sheep-hunting on horses by, 193.
• Siberia, fossil remains of musk-oxen found in, 85.
• Skulls of musk-oxen, 75-76, 80, 82, 83.
• Slaughter of buffaloes in America, 114-119.
• Sledge, description of, in Barren Ground outfit, 40-41.
• Sledge-dogs, methods of harnessing, 60-61.
• Scarcity of, in North, 38-39.
• Snowfall in Barren Grounds, 35.
• Snows, effect on buffaloes, 124, 137.
• Snow-shoes, Barren Ground, 35.
• Spitzbergen, musk-oxen unknown in, 93.
• Stone, Andrew J., report as to western range of musk-oxen, 86-93.
• Stouch, Major G. W. II., 143.
• Stringer, Rev. I. O., 89, 90.
• Strouds, 53, 54.
• “Surround” method of hunting buffalo, 150-153.
• Sweetwater River, buffaloes on, 126.
• Tail, lack of, in mountain sheep, 182.
• Tea an essential in Barren Ground outfit, 39-40.
• Tennessee River southern boundary of buffalo range, 121.
• Tepee in Barren Ground outfit, 55, 57, 64.
• Teton Range, sheep-hunting in, 209-222.
• Tibet, sheep found in, 182.
• White goat in, 239.
• Tobacco, necessity of, in Barren Ground outfit, 39-40.
• Tooyogmioot Indians, 90.
• Tracks made by white goat, 239-240.
• Travelling, methods of, in Barren Ground hunting, 62-63.
• Trees, absence of, from Barren Grounds, 35-36.
• “Tripping” snow-shoes, 35.
• Vaches (vaches sauvages), 120.
• Virginia, domestication of buffaloes in, 147.
• “Voyage to Georgia,” Moore’s, 121.
• Ward, Rowland, 79.
• “Records of Big Game” by, cited, 104, 165, 223, 274.
• Washakie Needle, mountain sheep on the, 186-196.
• Washington (state), white goat found in, 250.
• White goat [Oreamnus montanus], 227-273.
• Color, 242-243, 274.
• Description, 239-242.
• Food, 249.
• Habitat, 231, 245-251.
• Hair, 257.
• Height, 274.
• Hide, 241.
• Horns, 258.
• Hostility to sheep, 233-237, 245-246.
• Immigration from Asia, 232-233, 245-246.
• Kids, 271.
• Lewis’s error about, 251, 255-260.
• Method of hunting, 260.
• Origin, 232-233.
• Relationship to chamois, 232.
• Sheep and, 233-237, 245-246.
• Size, 242.
• Species, 232, 259.
• Specimens (live), 231, 237-238.
• Track made by, 239-240.
• Various Latin names for, 259.
• Weight, 241, 274.
• Whitney, Casper, musk-ox head taken by, 100.
• Whitney, William C., live musk-ox bought by, 103.
• Wild cows, elk called, 120.
• Wood bison [Bos bison athabascæ], 117, 123, 165.
• Wool of musk-ox, 97-98, 104-105.
• Wycliff, Robert, 147, 148, 149.
• Wyoming, bison horns from, 166.
• Mountain sheep in, 185, 225, 226.
• White goat not found in, 245, 248.
• Yancey, John, 252.
• Yellowstone Park, bison horns from, 166.
• Buffaloes in, 117-118.
• Game in, 273.
• Yoke, breaking buffaloes to the, 149.
• Young, of buffaloes, 132-135, 146-147.
• Of mountain sheep, 208-222.
• Of musk-oxen, 100, 103.
• Of white goat, 271.
• Zoölogical gardens, musk-oxen in, 103.
• Zoölogical Gardens, Philadelphia, white goat in, 231, 237-238.