COG MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 



tions which render a country inhabitable for animals I mean the 

 higher animals more particularly are wholly different and more 

 complex. A facility for removing from place to place in search of 

 food is one of these conditions, and assuredly one of the most essen- 

 tial But the number of terrestrial animals capable of climbing the 

 scarped flanks, of traversing the narrow ridges, and leaping across the 

 precipitous chasms of the mountains, is extremely limited. How- 

 ever, a few Herbivora excel in these perilous exercises. They are 

 Ruminants of small size, with tiny limbs, and small ungulated hoofs ; 

 Moufflons, wild Goats, Chamois, Kids, which seek on inaccessible 

 heights a refuge against the attacks of man and the Camaria, and 

 Ixnind, with marvellous agility and precision, from rock to rock, 

 from icy crag to crag, over the most formidable gulfs, and up the 

 most precipitous steeps. 



The Moufflons, or Wild Sheep, erroneously regarded by some 

 naturalists as the ancestors of our domestic sheep, form a genus whose 

 species are distributed in Asia, America, and Northern Africa, and 

 in the mountainous islands of the Mediterranean. The Musmon 

 Moufflon, which inhabits the mountains of Corsica, of Sardinia, of 

 Cyprus, and of Candia, is nearly the size of a sheep, but far more 

 robust His hair, which is only wool properly so called, is a reddish- 

 brown over nearly the whole of his body, and whitish under the 

 belly and the legs. His horns are of great size, transversely crumpled, 

 with a simple curve, and a sharp extremity. Among the Asiatic 

 species the largest is the Masinwn argali, which inhabits the Altai" 

 and the mountains of Kamtschatka, and approaches the ass in si/.e. 

 His skin is a yellowish-brown, with some white on the fore-feet. 

 His horns describe an almost complete circle. The American species 

 is the Musimon montanus, which we find in the Rocky Mountains. 

 Finally, the region of the Atlas and of the Aures Mountains is the 

 country of the Ruffled Moufflon (Moufflon A Manchettes), so named 

 on account of his long hairs, which fall from his shoulders upon the 

 extremity of his anterior legs. His neck is also supplied with a 

 thick mane. 



