048 SATURAL HISTORY. 



burns are familiar objects on tbe bandies of alpenstocks. The chamois is 

 small, about two feet high at the shoulder, and with a body three feet 

 long. It goes in small herds of twenty-five or thirty, or even fifty indi- 

 viduals, jumping about on the precipitous mountain sides, and climbing 

 cliffs where no less sure-footed animal could possibly follow them. These 

 Ik >rds are composed solely of females and young, the bucks leading a 

 solitary life except at the pairing season. When they feed, a sentinel is 

 posted, as is the case with many other animals, and the signal of alarm is 

 a whistling note accompanied with a stamping of the foot. In the Rocky 

 Mountains the mountain goat takes the place of the chamois, living the 

 same shy life in the wildest and most precipitous parts of the mountains, 

 and being almost utterly neglected by the hunters, on account of the worth- 

 lessness of the flesh. 



Of the domesticated sheep there are many varieties, almost as many as 

 there arc of horses or cattle, and in their case we have the same difficulty 

 in t racing their origin as in the case of any other form. The probability 

 is that several distinct species have been mingled in forming the wool- 

 producers of our fields, but this hybridity is not sufficient to account for 

 all the varieties; selection and careful breeding at the hands of man is 

 also responsible for part of the differences between the various forms. 

 One can scarcely imagine the amount of care devoted by breeders to the 

 quality of the stock. " In Saxony the importance of selection in regard 

 to merino sheep is so fully recognized, that men follow it as a trade; the 

 sheep are placed on a table and are studied, like a picture by a connois- 

 seur; this is done three times at intervals of months, and the sheep are 

 each time marked and classed, so that the very best may ultimately be 

 selected for breeding." Of all the varieties thus produced none is more 

 wonderful than the big-tailed Turkish sheep, the tail of which becomes so 

 fat and large that it is a severe task for the animal to carry it about. 



Of the wild sheep we mention but one species, the big-horn of the 

 Rocky Mountains, — and this can have had nothing to do with the tame 

 varieties, all of which are derived from Old-World forms. In many of 

 the older works astonishing tales are told of the big-horn, but none more 

 wonderful than that it precipitates itself headlong from the cliffs, strikes 

 upon its horns, which act like springs, and then rebounds to alight all 

 righl upon its feet. It is one of the faults of science that it explodes 

 many a pretty tale of travelers, and this one has had the fate of many 

 '■tlicrs: science has showu it to be utterly false. It is difficult to explain 

 how such a belief could have arisen, unless, perchance, it was manu- 

 factured from whole cloth. It may be, however, that it grew from an 

 attempted explanation of the battered condition frequently seen in the 



