A Trip After Mountain Sheep 249 



their thirst. As a rule, they spend their time among 

 the rocks and rough ground, and it is in these places 

 that they must be hunted. They cover a good deal 

 of ground when feeding, for the feed is scanty in 

 their haunts, and they walk quite rapidly along the 

 ledges or peaks, by preference high up, as they 

 graze or browse. When through feeding they al 

 ways choose as a resting-place some point from 

 which they can command a view over all the sur 

 rounding territory. An old ram is peculiarly wary. 

 The crest of a ridge or the top of a peak is a fa 

 vorite resting-bed; but even more often they choose 

 some ledge, high up, but just below the crest, or 

 lie on a shelf of rock that juts out from where a 

 ridge ends, and thus enables them to view the 

 country on three sides of them. In color they har 

 monize curiously with the grayish or yellowish 

 brown of the ground on which they are found, and 

 it is often very difficult to make them out when lying 

 motionless on a ledge of rock. Time and again 

 they will be mistaken for bowlders, and, on the 

 other hand, I have more than once stalked up to 

 masses of sandstone that I have mistaken for sheep. 

 When lying down the big-horn can thus scan 

 everything below it ; and both while feeding and rest 

 ing it invariably keeps the sharpest possible look-out 

 for all danger from beneath, and this trait makes 

 it needful for the hunter to always keep on the 

 highest ground and try to come on it from above. 

 For protection against danger it relies on ears, eyes, 

 and nose alike. The slightest sound startles it and 



