The Zoology of North American Big Game 



Sheep and goats agree together and differ from 

 oxen in being usually of smaller size; the tail is 

 shorter, the horns of females are much smaller than 

 those of males, they lack the accessory column on 

 the inner side of the upper molars, and the can- 

 non bone is longer and more slender; but when it 

 comes to a comparison of the one with the other, it 

 is by no means always easy to tell the difference. 

 It is true that the early Greeks seem to have had a 

 rough and ready rule under which mistakes were 

 not easy, for Aristotle tells us "Alcmaeon is mis- 

 taken when he says that goats breathe through 

 their ears," but the severely practical methods of 

 our own day leave us little but some very minute 

 points of difference. One of the best of these lies 

 in the shape of the basi-occipital bone, but 

 naturally this can be observed only in the prepared 

 skull. The terms often employed to denote differ- 

 ence in the horns can have only a general applica- 

 tion, for they break down in certain species in 

 which the two groups approach each other. The 

 following table expresses some fairly definite points 

 of separation : 



