i8o The Mountain Sheep 



too rigid. Animals there are, of course, com- 

 pletely white, or black, and so forth ; but many, 

 the more you scrutinize them, the more reveal 

 gradations, as this ram did ; gray fishing-tackle 

 is only a rough impression of his tint upon the 

 loth of July; on December the ist of that same 

 year I saw him again, and his hair had darkened 

 to something like a Maltese cat's. Furthermore, 

 I have seen other sheep in summer that struck 

 me, some as lighter, and some as darker, than the 

 gray of fishing-tackle. And what, shall we infer, 

 do these variations import? Adjustments to 

 climate and environment, state of the individual's 

 age and health, or several distinct species of 

 sheep ? I think I should be shy of the last in- 

 ference unless I were prepared to accept a differ- 

 ence in the color of the eyes and hair of two 

 brothers as being a basis sufficient to class them 

 as separate subspecies of man. It is a dear 

 thought to many of us that some mountain, some 

 lake, some river, some street, or even (rather than 

 nothing at all) some alley, shall be labelled with 

 our name, and thus bear it down the ages ; and 

 from this very human craving our zoologists are 

 not wholly exempt; but I have been taught to 

 doubt that of the mountain sheep, the Ovis cana- 



