- 2 ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



bighorn ram attains a weight of from one hundred and fifty 

 to two hundred pounds, and exceeds the domestic sheep 

 in size, and I am sure that a plump fall from a height of 

 forty feet will break the bones of any quadruped of that 

 bulk ; but it is true that only overhanging cliffs are likely 

 to prove fatal to the cimarron. In descending a steep 

 declivity, or even a perpendicular, but not absolutely 

 straight, rock-wall, he generally contrives to break his 

 fall by taking advantage of every cleft or protuberance 

 large enough to give him a foothold for a moment, and 

 his sharp cloven hoofs seem specially designed for such 

 purposes. Even goats have that trick. I knew a billy- 

 goat that would scramble down a high garden-wall as 

 a bear slides down a tree, and not under the impulse of 

 fear either, but merely to save himself the trouble of a 

 little detour. 



The North-Mexican mountaineers hunt bighorns with 

 a special breed of fleet dogs called galgos, or cimarron- 

 eros, in Nueva Leon, and said to be descendants of those 

 powerful sleuth-hounds that are used to chase the wolf 

 and the Iberian ibex in the Eastern Pyrenees. In quiet 

 winter nights the cimarrons often descend to the middle 

 region of the sierra, but hurry back to the highlands at 

 the first alarm ; and, taking advantage of this habit, the 

 hunting-party divide their forces. A couple of galgos 

 are taken straight to a mountain-meadow where cim- 

 arrons are known to graze in the morning; the rest 

 circumvent their retreat and take post at some point 



