Mountain Sheep 



The bighorn might be called the chamois of our Western 

 mountains, scaling the rugged cliffs and plunging over precipices 

 with the same agility and confidence that mark the famous in- 

 habitant of the Alps. 



The elastic spring of the animal when started and the easy 

 poise of the splendid head as it settles back on the shoulders 

 are exceedingly graceful, and the animal seems built and pro- 

 portioned to the finest detail for the life that it leads. 



From the edges of the Alaskan glaciers to the dry, water- 

 less crags of the Mexican Sierras we find one variety or other 

 of the mountain sheep. 



During the breeding season an old ram presides over the 

 flock of ewes and lambs, driving the younger rams off by them- 

 selves, as is usual among polygamous animals. The flocks are 

 exceedingly watchful and at the slightest alarm are off instantly, 

 selecting a course that few animals or men care to follow. In 

 early spring the sheep venture farther down into the mountain 

 valleys in search of food, but soon return to their rocky fastnesses 

 among the higher slopes. 



In the "Bad Lands," the easternmost part of their range, 

 Audubon made the acquaintance of these noble animals in 1843. He 

 says: "The parts of the country usually chosen by the sheep 

 for their pastures are the most extraordinary broken and pre- 

 cipitous clay hills or stony eminences that exist in the wild regions 

 belonging to the Rocky Mountain chain. Perhaps some idea of 

 the country they inhabit — which is called by the French Canad- 

 ians and hunters ' mauvaise terres' — may be formed by imagin- 

 ing some hundreds of loaves of sugar of different sizes, irregularly 

 broken and truncated at top, placed somewhat apart and 

 magnifying them into hills of considerable size. Over these hills 

 and ravines the Rocky Mountain sheep bound up and down and 

 you may estimate the difficulty of approaching them and con- 

 ceive the great activity and sure-footedness of this species. They 

 form paths around these irregular clay cones that are at times 

 six to eight hundred feet high, and in some situations are even 

 fifteen hundred feet or more above the adjacent prairies; and 

 along these they run at full speed, while to the eye of the specta- 

 tor below, these tracks do not appear to be more than a few 

 inches wide although they are generally from a foot to eighteen 

 inches in breadth. In many places columns or piles of clay or 



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