304 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



average for full-grown males. The females are 

 about a third lighter. 



Besides these differences in size, color, hair, etc., 

 as noted above, we may observe that the domestic 

 sheep, in a general way, is expressionless, like a 

 dull bundle of something only half alive, while the 

 wild is as elegant and graceful as a deer, every move 

 ment manifesting admirable strength and charac 

 ter. The tame is timid; the wild is bold. The tame 

 is always more or less ruffled and dirty ; while the 

 wild is as smooth and clean as the flowers of his 

 mountain pastures. 



The earliest mention that I have been able to 

 find of the wild sheep in America is by Father 

 Picolo, a Catholic missionary at Monterey, in the 

 year 1797, who, after describing it, oddly enough, 

 as "a kind of deer with a sheep-like head, and about 

 as large as a calf one or two years old," naturally 

 hurries on to remark: "I have eaten of these beasts; 

 their flesh is very tender and delicious." Mackenzie, 

 in his northern travels, heard the species spoken of 

 by the Indians as "white buffaloes." And Lewis 

 and Clark tell us that, in a time of great scarcity on 

 the head waters of the Missouri, they saw plenty of 

 wild sheep, but they were "too shy to be shot." 



A few of the more energetic of the Pah Ute In 

 dians hunt the wild sheep every season among the 

 more accessible sections of the High Sierra, in the 

 neighborhood of passes, where, from having been 

 pursued, they have become extremely wary ; but in 

 the rugged wilderness of peaks and canons, where 

 the foaming tributaries of the San Joaquin and 

 King's rivers take their rise, they fear no hunter 



