BIGHORN; MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 43 



Sheep is a pale wood brown, dark in summer and lighter in win- 

 ter and spring. The posterior portions of the legs and belly, and a 

 triangular patch upon the buttocks, are white. The coat is soft to 

 the touch, though the hair resembles that of the Caribou, and in a 

 less degree that of the Pronghorn Antelope. It is short, fine and 

 flexible on its first growth in autumn, but becomes longer as the 

 season advances until in winter the hair is so thick and close-set 

 that it stands erect. As the winter advances the dark tips of the 

 hair are rubbed off, so that by spring the old males are quite white. 

 A fine wool covers the skin under the hair. 



The Bighorn is very graceful in all its movements, and the light- 

 ness and agility with which it scales the steepest bluffs, runs along 

 the narrowest edge on the face of a precipice, or leaps from rock 

 to rock in its descent from some mountain-top, are excelled by no 

 animal with which we are familiar. Like all other wild ruminants, 

 they feed early in the morning, and they retire during the middle 

 of the day to points high up on the bluffs or mountains, where they 

 rest until the sun is low in the heavens, when they proceed again to 

 their feeding grounds. Except during the rut which takes place 

 during the month of December, the old rams are found in small 

 bands by themselves, the females, lambs and young rams associat- 

 ing together in companies of from five to twenty. Occasionally 

 much larger herds are seen, but this only in a country where they 

 have not been at all disturbed by man. 



The successful pursuit of this species requires the exercise on 

 the part of the hunter of the utmost patience and deliberation : no 

 animal is more shy and wary than the Bighorn, and if it receives 

 the slightest hint of the enemy's presence, it is up and away, not to 

 be seen again. No tyro in still hunting will succeed in securing 

 one of these vigilant climbers, and we have seen many a hunter of 

 experience who had yet to kill his first mountain sheep. The diffi- 

 culties which attend the capture of this species, however, only serve 

 to render its pursuit more attractive to the ardent sportsman, and 

 when in a country where it abounds, buffalo, deer, antelope and 

 even elk, are likely to be neglected for Bighorn. The flesh too is 

 most delicious, and is regarded as far superior to any meat which 

 the West affords. We know of no more delicate dish than is 

 afforded by a yearling ewe in good order, seasoned with that won- 



