350 THE IMAGE OF WAE 



into security. For half an hour we lay and watched 

 him. He was about six hundred yards away, and 

 through the glass I could of course see him distinctly. 

 As is the case with most sheep, he was considerably 

 larger than the ewes I had seen that morning. His 

 colour was a rich orange-red, darker as to the fore- 

 quarters, but this ended abruptly in a line about the 

 middle rib. Then came the white saddle-mark, and 

 the rest of the hindquarters were appreciably lighter 

 than the fore. Belly and legs were white — that is, 

 the legs below the knee ; and above the limbs were 

 deeply lined with black, this giving him a very game- 

 like appearance. The horns, rising Y-shaped from 

 the forehead and making a perfect triangle with the 

 white muzzle, were, as I judged, about twenty inches 

 long, and as thick as a man's wrist — quite good 

 enouo-h for a beginning, and I looked upon them with 

 a covetous eye, fully realising, however, that they 

 were a long way from being mine yet. 



My own idea of the stalk would have been to 

 ascend the valley, which separated us from the ram, 

 some quarter of a mile, then cross and work down on 

 him from above. The ground just above him looked 

 very bad and rocky, however, and then there was the 

 doubt whether so restless an animal as a wild sheep 

 would wait whilst we went all that way round. Even 

 during the half-hour we were watching him he got up 

 twice, looked about in every direction, and then lay 

 down facing a different way. At last we crawled off 

 on our backs out of his field of vision, and Jerome 

 began an almost direct approach behind a spur to 

 leeward, which was covered with arbutus and holm- 

 oak scrub. Presently I put my hand on a rock as big 



