The Bighorn and the Antelope. 149 



harsh criticism on the score of inaccuracy. Two years ago 

 showed in the pages of a leading review* that our literature on 

 old as well as new sport was full of mistakes, mistakes of facts, 

 figures, and quoted information. To a nation deservedly proud 

 of its premier rank in most matters connected with sport, books of 

 the kind I refer to do no credit. 



The weight of a good five-year-old ram hardly exceeds 3oolb. 

 (Audubon mentions the weight of one as being 344^.), though you 

 will often hear of 45o-pounders, statements which of course lack 

 the authority of an Audubon. Amongst the wonderful stories 

 of the bighorn that are current, the most absurd is that of their 

 pitching themselves headlong down precipices, striking the sharp 

 rocks with their horns, and thereby breaking their fall. Fremont 

 (the great explorer) is, alas ! one of the first to start this ridiculous 

 rumour in the account of his travels (1842), when describing the 

 " mountain goat," as he calls the bighorn. He says that " the use 

 of those huge horns seems to be to protect the animal's head in 

 pitching down precipices to avoid pursuing wolves." How history 

 does repeat herself! Pietro Cirneo, the I5th century chronicler of 

 Corsica, says that the moufflon throw themselves down precipices 

 head first, and break the fall by their horns. While De Saussure, 

 whose career has some points of similarity with that of Fremont, 

 says of the Swiss chamois, that " when pressed by foes, or driven 

 to places from which they cannot escape, they will hang them- 

 selves to the rocks by the crook of their horns, and thus perish." 



I have already hinted that bighorn are often mistaken for 

 "goat" (Haplocerus] and vice versa. To what extent this occurs 

 the following instance, culled from official experience, will prove. 

 It arose during the erection of the handsome new Parliament 

 buildings at Victoria, when it became necessary to adorn the 

 frontage of this palatial pile with the newly-adopted coat of 

 arms of the province of British Columbia. Lest I be accused 

 of exaggeration I shall quote verbatim the following public 



* Fortnightly Review, August, 1897, and November, 1897. 



