THE SHEEP 



i6s 



As for food, they prefer the short, 

 fine grasses, nourishing and aromatic, 

 which grow on dry, calcareous moun- 

 tain slopes and rolling hillsides, not, 

 however, disdaining those that grow 

 in saline places, for they love salt, 

 like the goat, the deer, the ass, and 

 the horse. All sheep, but especially 

 young lambs, like to climb the accliv- 

 ities that they see about them. Their 

 skill in this direction they have doubt- 

 less derived from their ancestors, the 

 wild mountain sheep. They have 

 never had, however, the agility of 

 goats, which are native born to moun- 

 tains and rocks. 



The sheep is so closely related to 

 the goat that there is very little dif- 

 ference in the skeletons of the two 

 species, and what there is lies chiefly in the 

 hollow profile of the face of the goat and the 

 rounded profile of the sheep. In other respects, 

 the sheep is unlike the goat in temperament, 

 in character, in coat, in the shape of its horns, 

 and in its peculiar odor, which differs in all 



A MorFLf)N Ram 



Mn,KiN(, A .Siii;i:i' 



animals. The docility and stupidity of the sheep 

 are as unlike the savage temper, vivacity, and 

 obstinacy of the goat as its crinkled wool is 

 unlike the latter's wavine hair. 



II. Origin 



There are different opinions regarding 

 the origin of the sheep, some naturalists 

 giving them for ancestor the mouflon of 

 Armenia and Persia, others the argali of 

 Siberia and central Asia, while some again 

 discover their forerunners in the Oural 

 sheep of the Himalayas, in the Buhel or 

 blue sheep of the plains of central Asia, 

 or in the bighorns of Kamchatka and Alaska 

 and the Rocky Mountains of America. 



The argalis are the largest of all wild 

 sheep, attaining sometimes to a height of 

 three and a half feet. They inhabit the 

 rocky slopes of southern Siberia and north- 

 ern Mongolia and have much in common 

 with the bighorn. A smaller species in- 

 habits the plateau of Tibet, descending to 

 the plains in winter. Very large and heavy 

 argalis are found on the plateau of Pamir, 

 over eighteen hundred feet above sea level. 



The mouflon lives in the mountains of 

 Persia and Armenia and on the islands 

 of Cyprus, Sardinia, and Corsica ; formerly 



