The Mountain Sheep and its Range 



grass is sweet and tender, the going good, and 

 where a refuge is within easy reach. While hunt- 

 ing in such places in September and October, when 

 the first snows are falling, one is likely to find the 

 trail of a band of sheep close up beneath the rock. 

 If the mountain is one long inhabited by sheep, 

 they have made a well-worn trail on the hill- 

 side, and the little band, while traveling along this 

 in a general way, scatters out on both sides 

 feeding on the grass heads that project above the 

 snow, and often with their noses pushing the light 

 snow away to get at the grass beneath. I have 

 never seen them do this, nor have I seen them paw 

 to get at the grass, but the marks in the snow 

 where they have fed showed clearly that the snow 

 was pushed aside by the muzzle. 



Like most other animals, wild and tame, sheep 

 are very local in their habits, and one little band 

 will occupy the same basin in the mountains all 

 summer long, going to water by the same trail, 

 feeding in the same meadows and along the same 

 hillsides, occupying the same beds stamped out in 

 the rough slide rock, or on the great rock masses 

 which have fallen down from the cliff above. 

 Even if frightened from their chosen home by the 

 passage of a party of travelers, they will go no 

 further than to the tops of the rocks, and as soon 



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