THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



When travelling in winter with a dog team, my dogs 

 repeatedly scented sheep on the mountain sides from a 

 distance of more than two miles, and always, if the wind 

 was favorable, saw the sheep long before I could detect 

 them. The enemies of all the sheep are the same the 

 golden eagle, the wolf, lynx, wolverine, and possibly 

 the fox. In the north, bears never hunt or prey upon 

 sheep. Sheep have no other natural enemies. 



The eagle preys only on the lambs and on them only 

 until they are six weeks or two months old. After that, 

 neither sheep nor eagles pay any attention to each other. 



The wolf is not very persistent in hunting sheep, prefer- 

 ring rather the caribou and the moose. He catches sheep 

 by chasing them on the smooth parts of their range, usually 

 on the rolling hills of the basins, the pastures of the divides 

 between mountains above timber-line, and sometimes on 

 the level bars of a glacial river. He sometimes drives them 

 off smooth mountains and catches them when they cross 

 the low intervening country in their efforts to reach a high 

 mountain beyond. The wolf, in his effort to detect sheep 

 feeding or travelling in places favorable for catching them, 

 roams on the ridges, lower mountain-slopes, and even the 

 flat country above timber. He begins to run from a dis- 

 tance toward the sheep, in the hope of catching one. 

 But if the sheep succeed in reaching a steep mountain- 

 slope or a ridge broken by rocks, the wolf never attempts 

 to follow them upward. On smooth mountain-slopes the 

 wolf always goes above the sheep and chases them down- 

 ward, attempting to catch one before they can turn and 

 go above the enemy. Wolves usually chase the youngest 



