52 



MAMMALS OF AMERICA 



protected. In a large number of States the kill- 

 ing of Bighorn is now prohibited, but there is 

 great difficulty in enforcing the game laws. 



The Bighorn is a stoutly built animal, larger 

 than the domestic Sheep, the ram standing about 

 three and one-half feet high at the withers, and 

 weighing about 300 pounds. A very fine ram, 

 killed in Wyoming in 1889, measured fifty-eight 

 inches from nose to root of tail, and had a 



Mix Wilde 



A SUSPICIOUS BIGHORN 



While the Mountain Sheep are very shy and their protective 

 coloring makes them hard to distinguish, the ewes may 

 be found more frequently than the rams, as the former do 

 most of their browsing during the day 



height at the shoulders of forty inches. The tail 

 was three inches long. The Bighorn has a 

 heavy coat of coarse, stiff hair, resembling that 

 of the Wapiti, and beneath this is a sparse cover- 

 ing of white wool. In summer, this is grayish- 

 brown in color, often with a reddish tinge ; in 

 winter, it changes to bluish-gray in the upper 

 parts ; the under parts and portions of the legs 

 are white ; a dark stripe runs along the back to 

 the tail, which is black and comi^letelv sur- 



rounded by a conspicuous creamy-white patch 

 on the hind quarters. 



The muscular development of the Rocky 

 Mountain Bighorn is remarkable. As G. O. 

 Shields says : " ^^ bile possibly not as graceful 

 and elastic in his movements as the Deer or the 

 Antelope, yet he will leap from crag to crag, will 

 bound up over ragged ledges, over ice-glazed 

 slopes, or down perpendicular precipices, alight- 

 ing on broken and disordered masses of rock 

 with a courage and a sure-footedness that must 

 challenge the admiration of everyone who has 

 an opportunity to study him in his mountain 

 home." At the same time many of the " hair- 

 breadth stories and wonderful pictures of Sheep 

 hunting, in which men climb and cling bv their 

 finger-tips to overhanging rock faces," must be 

 considerably discounted. 



The fact that the Sheep often plunge head 

 first has given rise to the fable that they land 

 on their curved horns. This is absolutely untrue ; 

 they always strike ledges with their feet held 

 close together. As Mr. Shields very per- 

 tinently remarks : " A full-grown ram weighs 

 three hundred pounds or more ; and while his 

 horns would probably stand the shock of such a 

 fall, his bones would not. His neck, and prob- 

 ably every other bone in his body, would, if he 

 jumped from a precipice and fell fifty or a hun- 

 dred feet, be crushed to splinters. Besides, if the 

 rams could stand it, and come out of it safely, 

 what would become of the ewes and lambs, which 

 have not the big horns, and which follow where- 

 ever the rams lead? A Sheep never jumps down 

 a sheer precipice of more than ten or fifteen 

 feet ; and whenever or wherever he does jump, 

 he always lands on his feet." There is no ques- 

 tion, however, of the agility of the Bighorn in 

 making its way over crags and rim-rocks; it is 

 often found as high as ij,ooo feet above sea- 

 level ; and it is equally true that it can dash down 

 decli\ities whose steepness seems to threaten its 

 certain destruction. 



The lambs, one or two at a birth, arc born in 

 May or June, and early give evidence of their 

 courage and agility, following the ewes wher- 

 ever they lead. \\'hilc the ewes and lambs are 

 feeding, there is always one ewe that acts as 

 sentinel to warn the flock of approaching danger. 

 According to John Muir, " in spring and summer 

 the full-grown rams form separate bands of 

 from three to twenty, and are usually found 

 feeding along the edges of glacier meadows, or 

 resting among castle-like crags of the high sum- 

 mits." In July and August all the Sheep may be 



