230 Mountain Sheep. 



peak is a favorite 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 harmonize 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 boulders, 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 every 

 thing below it ; and both while feeding and resting it in- 

 variably keeps the sharpest possible look-out for all danger 

 from beneath, and this trait makes it needful for the hun- 

 ter 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 star- 

 tles it and puts it on its guard, while if it sees or smells 

 any thing which it deems may bode danger it is off like a 

 flash. It is as wary and quick-sighted as the antelope, 

 and its senses are as keen as are those of the elk, while it 

 is not afflicted by the occasional stupidity nor heedless 

 recklessness of these two animals, nor by the intense curi- 

 osity of the black-tail, and it has all the white-tail's sound 

 common-sense, coupled with a much shyer nature and 

 much sharper faculties, so that it is more difficult to kill 

 than are any of these creatures. And the climbing is 

 rendered all the more tiresome by the traits above spoken 

 of, which make it necessary for the hunter to keep above 



