WILDERNESS RESERVES 305 



stone just above Tower Falls. Judging by their descrip- 

 tion, the elk had crossed by thousands in an uninter- 

 rupted stream, the passage taking many hours. In fact 

 nowadays these Yellowstone elk are, with the exception 

 of the Arctic caribou, the only American game which 

 at times travel in immense droves like the buffalo of the 

 old days. 



A couple of days after leaving Cottonwood Creek 

 where we had spent several days we camped at the Yel- 

 lowstone Canyon below Tower Falls. Here we saw a 

 second band of mountain sheep, numbering only eight 

 none of them old rams. We were camped on the west 

 side of the canyon; the sheep had their abode on the op- 

 posite side, where they had spent the winter. It has 

 recently been customary among some authorities, espe- 

 cially the English hunters and naturalists who have 

 written of the Asiatic sheep, to speak as if sheep were 

 naturally creatures of the plains rather than mountain 

 climbers. I know nothing of the Old World sheep, but 

 the Rocky Mountain bighorn is to the full as character- 

 istic a mountain animal, in every sense of the word, as 

 the chamois, and, I think, as the ibex. These sheep 

 were well known to the road builders, who had spent the 

 winter in the locality. They told me they never went 

 back on the plains, but throughout the winter had spent 

 their days and nights on the top of the cliff and along 

 its face. This cliff was an alternation of sheer precipices 

 and very steep inclines. When coated with ice it would 

 be difficult to imagine an uglier bit of climbing; but 

 throughout the winter, and even in the wildest storms, 



