MO UNTAIN SHEEP BIG-HORN. 207 



experience with this animal, and have bagged fewer, than 

 any other of the game animals of the plains. These few 

 have been generally from lucky shots at the herds as they 

 scampered among the rocks far above me. I have, how- 

 ever, been with parties when many were killed by sports- 

 men more enamoured of mountain climbing than I am ; 

 and, though I know but little of the habits of the 

 animal, I am consoled by the fact that the oldest moun- 

 taineers know scarcely more. 



The mountain sheep is a curious combination. His 

 body is that of a very large deer ; his head that of a 

 domestic sheep, except that no domestic sheep could pos- 

 sibly carry the enormous horns with which his mountain 

 cousin is provided. These horns are often more than 

 twenty inches in circumference at the base,and, starting out 

 at the rear, make more than a complete circle, the points 

 projecting below and in front of the eyes. I have been 

 told that head and horns will often weigh sixty pounds. 

 He sheds his winter covering very late, whilst, after 

 shedding, his coat is thick with short, greyish hair. By 

 fall this has changed to a dun, almost the colour of the 

 elk. The outer hair has become more than an inch long, 

 rather wiry ; and in winter he puts on an additional jacket 

 in the shape of a coating of exceedingly fine wool, which, 

 though sometimes quite three inches long, never shows 

 outside the other hair, but lies curled up close to the skin. 



As with all animals whose habits are not positively 

 known, there are many fables as to his mode of life ; 

 among others, the habit, when pursued, of throwing 

 himself down immense precipices and alighting unscathed 

 on his huge horns. As he is a beast of heavy body, the 

 first attempt at such a feat would most undoubtedly 

 result in a broken neck. The truth is that his feet, though 

 protected with the horny toes of other animals of this 

 class, are soft, spongy cushions, almost erectile, and cling- 

 ing almost with the tenacity of a fly to any projection, 

 however slight, on which it may strike. 



