66 ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



called the winter season. During a heavy " norther" 

 buffaloes often stand in the hollows of the Texas cross- 

 timber for days together in a semi-torpid state, and the 

 little musk-ox must probably draw considerably upon 

 his inner resources to survive the terrible snows of the 

 Hudson's Bay territory. It is also certain that some 

 quadrupeds, including the mountain sheep and the gu- 

 anaco, are able to distinguish the signs of an approach- 

 ing storm from those of a common thunder-shower. 

 Mexican shepherds have often been warned to save their 

 flocks by the mad gallop of a troop of mountain sheep 

 fleeing toward some sheltered valley on the lee-side of 

 a wind which gradually rose to a destructive hurricane. 



Frederick Gerstaecker found a cimarron camp on the 

 very ridge of the Sierra Nevada, but no hunter, so far 

 as I know, has ever discovered the lying-in establish- 

 ment of a mother-ewe; the cimarrona seems to sum- 

 mon all her secretiveness and topographical experience 

 to hide her new-born lambs from human sight. In 

 August or late in July — rarely sooner — they are found 

 in company of their seniors, evidently numbering their 

 days by weeks, but still rather misshapen, chub-headed, 

 and ridiculously long-legged little fellows, resembling 

 fallow fawns rather than lambs. The whole family, 

 indeed, has something cervine in its appearance. Na- 

 ture is said to abhor a vacuum, but shows a still more 

 decided repugnance to systematism, and seems to take 

 a special delight in puzzling our zoological categorists. 



