96 ANIMALS OP NORTH AMERICA. 



goat and that described by Homer ages ago, utterly lost 

 sight of during all intervening time, and only lately re-dis- 

 covered in the islands of the Levant. This animal is often 

 confounded with the next species. 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP, or ARGALI (Ovis Mon- 

 tana'), called also the Cimaron. 



Description. Larger than the common sheep ; the ears 

 pointed ; the horns which are transversely wrinkled, large, 

 and triangular, are twisted laterally into a spiral ; the limbs 

 are slender, and covered with uniform short hair. 



These animals are confined exclusively to the Rocky 

 Mountains : they are met with in herds of from twenty to 

 thirty, but are very wary. They feed on the tops of the ridges, 

 with posted sentinels ever watchful ; and their great quickness 

 of sight and hearing, render them perhaps the most difficult to 

 approach of all the four-footed game of America. They have 

 immense horns, especially the old males, in whom they are 

 so enormous that from their curving forward and downward 

 to such an extent, they preclude them from feeding on level 

 ground. 



It is necessary therefore for them to seek the pasture on 

 steep places above them, or to browse on the long herbage 

 on the margin of the water-courses. They are usually found 

 about grassy knolls skirted by craggy rocks, to which they 

 can retreat when pursued by dogs or wolves. The Indian 

 appellation for them is " the foolish bear," for in the retired 

 parts of the mountains, where no fire-arms have been used, 

 they are quite tame, exhibiting the simplicity of the domestic 

 sheep ; but when they have been often fired at, they assume 

 the wild and vigilant character under which they are generally 

 described. In its facility of leaping from crag to crag it 

 resembles the chamois of the Alps. 



An attempt was made some years ago to obtain some 

 young of this species and domesticate them in the Scotch 

 mountains for the sake of their fleece, which far excels that 



