EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI ElVER. 15 



The measurements of a male obtained in the Eocky Mountains by 

 Audubon vary but little as compared with the above. The weight of 

 his specimen was 344 pounds, which is, perhaps, about an average for 

 full-grown males. The females are about a third lighter.* 



Mr. Muir, who has observed these wild sheep extensively in recent 

 years, and who has given a valuable and interesting contribution to 

 our knowledge of them, ranks «hem highest among the animal moun- 

 taineers of the Sierra. " Possessed of keen sight and scent, immovable 

 nerve, and strong limbs," he ranged from one extremity of the lofty 

 mountains to the other, crossed foaming torrents and slopes of frozen 

 snow, exposed to the wildest storms, yet maintaining a brave, warm 

 life, and developing from generation to generation in perfect strength 

 and beauty. Compared to the best domesticated breeds, this wild 

 sheep of the Eocky Mountains is more than twice as large; and, in- 

 stead of an all-wool garment, the wild sheep wears a thick overcoat of 

 hair like that of the deer, and an midercovering of fine wool, which is 

 always white, and grows in beautiful spirals down out of sight among 

 the straight shining hair like delicate climbing vines among stalks of 

 corn. The coarse, soft, and spongy outer hair lies smooth, as if care- 

 fully tended mth comb and brush. The more energetic Indians hunt 

 these sheep among the more accessible of the California alps, in the 

 neighborhood of passes, where, from having been pursued, they have 

 at length become extremely wary; but in the rugged wilderness of 

 peaks and canons, where the foaming tributaries of the San Joaquin 

 and Kings rivers take their rise, they fear no hunter save the wolf, and 

 are more guileless and approachable than their tame kindred. Their 

 feeding grounds are among the most beautiful of the wild gardens of 

 the mountains, bright with daisies, and their resting places are chosen 

 with reference to sunshine and a wide outlook, and, most of all, to 

 safety from the attacks of wolves. They bring forth their young in the 

 most inaccessible and solitary places, far above the nesting rocks of the 

 eagle. Mr. Muir says he has frequently come upon the beds of the 

 ewes and lambs at an elevation of from 12,000 to 13,000 feet above sea 

 level. These beds he describes as simply oval-shaped hollows, pawed 

 out among loose, disintegrating rock chips and sand, upon some sunny 

 spot commanding a good outlook and partially sheltered from the 

 winds that sweep those lofty peaks almost without intermission. 



Such is the cradle of the little mountaineer, aloft in the very sky, rocked in storms, 

 curtained in clouds, sleeping in thin, icy air ; hut, wrapped in his hairy coat and 

 nourished hy a strong, warm mother, defended from the talons of the eagle and teeth 

 of the sly coyote, the bonnie lamb grows apace. He soon learns to nibble the tufted 

 rock grasses and leaves of the white spiraea. His horns begin to shoot, and before 

 summer is done he is strong and agile, and goes forth with the flock, watched by the 

 same divine love that tends the more helpless human lamb in its warm cradle by the 

 flreside.t 



•The wild sheep of the Sierra, in "Sport With Rod and Gun." The Century 

 Company, 1883. 

 i "Sport with Gun and Rod." The Century Co., 1883. 



