THE BIG HORN. 649 



The Big-horn is found in troops of twenty or thirty in number; they 

 never quit the craggiest regions, but find their food upon the little knolls 

 of green herbage that are sprinkled among the precipices, without being 

 tempted by the verdure of the plains. They come down, however, from 

 their rocky fastnesses to obtain water from the low-lying springs. They 

 are very shy and suspicious, and, at the first appearance of a man, take 

 flight. " What becomes of the Mountain Sheep," writes General Dodge, 

 " when man invades his stronghold, it is impossible to say. Hundreds 

 may be in a locality ; man appears ; a few, perhaps ten, are killed ; the 

 others disappear and leave no sign. 



The Big-horn is an admirable climber, and runs up or down the faces 

 of precipices where apparently no foothold exists. Their habits are those 

 of other sheep. The lambs begin to be seen in June, when they are 

 placed on some shelf of rock inaccessible to man or any beast of prey. 

 The ewes and lambs, according to Richardson, form herds apart from 

 the males. From the middle of August till November, the flesh of the 

 Big-horn is in prime condition. According to General Dodge " it is im- 

 possible to describe it, but if one can imagine a saddle of most delicious 

 ' Southdown ' flavored with the richest and most gamey juices of the 

 black-tail deer, he will form some idea of a feast of mountain-sheep in 

 season, and properly cooked. Except in season, the mountain sheep is 

 thin, tough, and the poorest food that the plains furnish to man." 



THE FAT-TAILED SHEEP. 



In several foreign breeds of the domestic sheep there is a curious 

 tendency to the deposition of fat upon the hinder quarters. This pro- 

 pensity is not valued in our own country, where the sheep are almost 

 invariably deprived of the greater portion of their tails by the hand of 

 the shepherd, which in consequence are never developed. In some vari- 

 eties, however, such as the steatopygous sheep of Tartary, the fat accu- 

 mulates upon the hinder quarters in such enormous masses that the 

 shape of the animal is completely altered. The fat of this portion of the 

 body will sometimes weigh between thirty and forty pounds, and when 

 melted down, will yield from twenty to thirty pounds of pure tallow. So 

 inordinate is the growth of the fat, that the tail becomes almost oblit- 

 ■crated, and is only perceptible externally as a little round fleshy button. 

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