228 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 
forward and outward in a graceful spiral curve not displayed by 
any other animal known to the wild. These horns have been 
known to measure thirty-three, and in rare cases forty, inches 
when measured along the curve, and with a girth at the skull of 
no less than fifteen or sixteen inches. 
These magnificent animals choose their range far up the most 
inaccessible mountain ledges, and, when surprised, have the most 
marvelous ability both to clamber and to leap. They readily 
leap thirty or forty feet, striking safely on the feet,! and a drop 
down precipices of one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet 
is said to be well within their ability. 
This true wild sheep ranges from the mountains of Mexico 
to those of Alaska. Its flesh is said to equal the best venison, 
and it would undoubtedly have yielded to domestication if we 
had not already been well supplied with sheep when the country 
was discovered. 
On the Asiatic side the Kamchatkan wild sheep (Outs niv- 
cola) closely resembles the bighorn except that he is lighter in 
body and limb and finer in head and horn. As with him, both 
sexes are horned. Off to the southwest in northern Mongolia 
is the closely related argali (Ovds anzmon), and further on in the 
highlands of Tibet is a slightly different species, Ov7s hodgsont. 
Still further to the southwest in eastern Turkestan, and at an 
elevation of ten to twelve thousand feet, is the wild Pamir sheep 
(Ovws polt), the only rival of the bighorn. This fellow can 
boast a horn measuring as much as sixty inches, but without the 
magnificent curve of the bighorn, as it stands out somewhat at 
the side, that is, has a greater spread. The mountain regions 
of southern Asia are well supplied with sheeplike animals, too 
numerous in their species even to be enumerated here. 
Off to the west we have the Armenian sheep (Oz’s gmclint), 
in the islands of the Mediterranean the Cyprian (Oz/s ophion), 
and further west, in Corsica and Sardinia, the Mouflon (Outs 
1 It is asserted, but upon questionable authority, that a favorite habit of the 
bighorn when he doubts his legs is to light upon his head. 
