THE BIG HORN, OR ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 



683 



are not suffered to lie unobserved on the ground, but are soon utilized by the foxes and 

 other small mammalia which inhabit the same country, and converted at once into dwell- 

 ing-houses, where they lie as comfortably as the hermit-crab in a whelk-shell. Man also 

 makes use of these horns, by converting them into various articles of domestic economy. 



It is a mountain-loving animal, being found on the highest grounds of Southern 

 Siberia and the mountains of Central Asia, and not fond of descending to the level 

 ground. 



Its power of limb and sureness of foot are truly marvellous when the great size of 

 the animal is taken into consideration. If disturbed while feeding in the valley, it make 

 at once for the rocks, and flies up their craggy surfaces with wonderful ease and rapidity. 

 Living in such localities, they are liable to suffer great changes of temperature, and 

 are sometimes wholly enveloped in the deep snowdrifts that are so common upon 



AOVDAD.Ammotragus Tragelaphus. 



mountainous regions. In such cases they lie quietly under the snow in a manner 

 similar to that which has already been related of the hare under the same circumstances, 

 and are able to continue respiration by means of a small breathing-hole through the 

 snow. For these imprisoned Argalis the hunters eagerly search, as the animal is 

 deprived of its fleet and powerful limbs, and is forced ignominiously to succumb to the 

 foe.,, 'who impales him by driving his spear through the snow into the creature's body. 

 Like others of the same group, it is gregarious, and lives in small flocks. 



ANOTHER example of the Mouflons may be found in the BIG-HORN, or ROCKY MOUN- 

 TAIN SHEEP, of California. 



This animal is not at all uncommon in its native land, where it may be found in little 

 troops of twenty or thirty in number, inhabiting the craggiest and most inaccessible rocks. 

 From these posts of vantage they never wander, but are content to find their food upon 



