The Rocky Mountain Sheep. 35T 



Sner, and would in his opinion be liiglily useful in the arts, if it 

 could be procured in sufficient quantity. The same author informs 

 us that when the animal is fat its flesh is well tasted, and resem- 

 Mes that of the caribou, but has a coarser grain. The flesh of 

 the bulls is high flavoured, and both bulls and cows when lean 

 smell strongly of music, their flesh at the same time being very 

 dark and tough, and certainly far inferior to that of any other 

 ruminatina: animal in North America. The carcass of a musk 

 ox weighs, exclusive of the ofFal, about three hundred-weight, or 

 nearly three times as much as a barren-ground caribou, and twice 

 as much as one of the woodland caribou. (Richardson, " Fauna 

 Borealia-Americana," English Cyclopedea, &c.) 



ARTICLE L. — The Rocky Mountain Sheep^ (Ovis montana) 



GENUS OVIS.— Linn. 



Dental Formula. 



Incisive J ; Canine g- — g ; Molar | — |- = 32, 



" Horns, common to both sexes ; sometimes wanting in the 

 females ; they are voluminous, more or less angular-transversely 

 wrinkled, turned laterally in spiral directions, and enveloping an 

 osseous arch, cellular in structure. 



" They have no lachrymal sinus, no true beard to the chin ; 

 the females have two mammae ; tail, rather short ; ears, small, 

 erect; legs, rather slender ; hair, of two kinds, one hard and close, 

 the other woolly ; gregarious. Habit, analagous to the goats. 

 Inhabit the highest mountains of the four quarters of the globe. 



" The generic name is derived from the Latin ovis, a sheep. 



" There are four well determined species : one, the mouflon of 

 Buffon, musmon (ovis jnusmon,) is received as the parent of the 

 domesticated races; it is found in Corsica, Sardinia, and the 

 highest mountain chains of Europe ; one inhabiting the mountains 

 and steppes of northern Asia, Tartary, Siberia and the Kurile 

 Islands ; one the mountains of Egypt, and one America." 



Ovis Montana — Desm. 

 Rocky Mountain Sheep or Big Horn. 

 "Specific Characters. — Longer than the domestic sheep; horns 

 of tlie male, long, strong and triangular ; those of the female, com- 



