78 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 



hit violently, as the bare space around them 

 showed. They were pushing each other, butt- 

 ing their heads together, rearing up on their 

 hind legs. As I watched them another gust 

 came roaring forward; they stopped for a sec- 

 ond and then rushed toward it. I caught my 

 last glimpse just as it struck them and they 

 both leaped high to meet it. 



I was in the heights when a heavy snow came 

 down and did not drift. It lay deeply over 

 everything except pinnacles and sharp ridges. 

 I made a number of snowshoe trips to see how 

 sheep met this condition. During the storm one 

 flock had stood beneath an overhanging cliff. 

 When the snowfall ceased the sheep wallowed to 

 the precipitous edge of the plateau and at the 

 risk of slipping overboard had travelled along 

 an inch or less wide footing for more than a 

 mile. Where the summit descended by steep 

 slope they ventured out. Steepness and snow 

 weight before their arrival, perhaps with the 

 assistance of their tramplings, had caused the 

 snow at the top to slip. As the slide thus 

 started tore to the bottom it scraped a wide 

 swath free of snow. In this cleared strip the 

 sheep were feeding contentedly. 



Snowslides, large and small, often open 

 emergency feeding spaces for sheep. Long 

 snowshoe excursions on the Continental Divide 



