10 THE WILD SHEEP. 



wolves and foxes, the celebrated sable whose 

 skin is sold for so great a price, and the native 

 wild sheep, which inhabits the tops of the high- 

 est mountains. It attains the size of a large 

 goat ; the head resembles that of an ordinary 

 sheep, but is furnished with strong, crooked 

 horns : the skin and form of the body are like 

 the reindeer, and it feeds chiefly on moss. It 

 is fleet and active, achieving, like the chamois, 

 prodigious springs among the rocks and preci- 

 pices, and is, consequently, with difficulty killed 

 or taken. In preparing for these leaps, its eye 

 measures the distance with surprising accuracy ; 

 the animal then contracts its legs, and darts 

 forward head-foremost to the destined spot, 

 where it alights upon its feet, nor is it ever 

 knovvn to miss, although the point may be so 

 small as to admit its four feet only by their 

 being closely pressed together. The manner in 

 which it balances itself after such leaps is also 

 admirable : our ballet-dancers would consider it 

 a model of a perfect a plomb. The monster of 

 the antediluvian world, the mammoth, must 

 have been an inhabitant of this country, since 

 many of its bones have been found here. 



