26 HOOFED ANIMALS 



sportsman can win. But it must be clean, and not haunted 

 by the ghosts of slaughtered ewes and lambs! One of the 

 greatest days of my life was that on which I pursued and 

 killed, alone, amid the grandeur of the Shoshone Mountains, 

 my first big mountain ram. It was then that I learned how 

 much a Mountain Sheep needs to be seen in its native cloud- 

 land in order to be fully appreciated. It is an animal for 

 which my admiration is as boundless as are the glories of its 

 mountain home. 



The Mountain Sheep is a bold and even reckless climber. 

 It is robust and strong on its legs, yet active withal, and 

 capable of feats of endurance that are really astonishing. It 

 cannot, and never did, "leap from a height, and alight upon 

 its horns," —save by some neck-breaking accident. When 

 pursued it can, however, dash down appalling declivities, 

 touching here and there, and land in safety, when to the ob- 

 server it seems certain to be dashed to death. 



The young are born in May or June, above timber-line 

 if possible, among the most dangerous and inaccessible crags 

 and precipices that the mother can find. Her idea is to have 

 her offspring begin its life in places so steep and dangerous 

 that a very slight effort on its part will suffice to keep it be- 

 yond the reach of foes. The lamb's most dangerous enemy 

 is the eagle, against which the mother cannot always suc- 

 cessfully guard it. 



Except the burrhel and aoudad, any adult Mountain Sheep, 

 from either the Old World or the New, can readily be recognized 

 by its massive, round-curving horns, which, when seen in profile, 

 describe from one-half to three-fourths of a circle, or more. 



