AY THE 1'AR U'EST. 329 



peaceful solitude of their lives. While grazing, a flock has a. 

 sentinel to stand guard and give notice of the approach of an 

 enemy. The sentinel is always a male, and when he detects 

 the presence of man or dangerous heast he sounds an alarm in 

 a few short, peremptory calls. This brings his companions 

 huddling to his side, and when all are assembled, the mothers 

 and their offspring being in the centre, they dash for the most 

 inaccessible peaks at their best pace, and never stop until they 

 have placed a goodly distance between themselves and the 

 object of their suspicion. Once on safe ground, they throw out 

 vedettes again. These occupy some huge crag or elevated knoll 

 that commands a view of the surrounding country which is 

 generally treeless and this enables them to see all transpiring 

 within range of vision. 



Since the settlement of the Pacilic Coast the animal has 

 been driven to the very highest mountain ranges to iind food 

 and security, and it is only near snowy pinnacles that it may 

 now be found. Judging from the conversations of an old Indian 

 in the Walla Walla Valley, in Washington Territory, it formerly 

 occupied the peaks of the Blue Mountains, a range having an 

 altitude of only five thousand feet, but 1 doubt if a specimen 

 can be found there now. The Indians, to whom it was known 

 as the wow, state that it was very difficult of approach owing 

 to its vigilance, keenness of scent, and the extensive view which 

 the sentinels, always on duty, had of the surrounding country. 

 Their most successful mode of hunting it was to drive a flock 

 towards a canyon, where a party was concealed, and to shoot 

 them as they dashed up or down the binds. They succeeded 

 sometimes in bagging one by means of pitfalls and traps, but 

 they placed little dependence on such means of capture,, owing 

 to the caution of the leaders. In many places where it was 

 formerly quite numerous it has disappeared entirely, but not 

 through the war waged upon it so much as its natural inclina- 

 tion to keej> away from the haunts of man, and especiallv, 

 according to Indian tales, of the white man, whom it seems to 

 fear more than any other foe. An old chief, known among 

 his tribe on Puget Sound as 3[<>w/ch, or the "deer," from his 

 success as a hunter, informed me that the gout w;is more 



