THE SHEEP 



165 



As for food, they prefer the short, 

 fine grasses, nourishing and aromatic, 

 which grow on dry, calcareous moun- 

 tain slopes and rolling hillsides, not, 

 however, disdaining those that gi'ow 

 in saUne places, for they love salt, 

 like the goat, the deer, the ass, and 

 the horse. All sheep, but especially 

 young lambs, like to climb the accli\- 

 ities that they see about them. Their 

 skill in this direction they ha\'e doubt- 

 less derived from their ancestors, the 

 wild mountain sheep. They ha\e 

 never had, howcx'er, the agilit\' (if 

 goats, which are native born to moun- 

 tains and rocks. 



The sheep is so closely related to 

 the goat that there is very little dif- 

 ference in the skeletons of the two 

 species, and what there is lies chiefly in the 

 hollow profile of the face of the goat and the 

 rounded profile of the sheep. In other respects, 

 the sheep is unlike the goat in temperament, 

 in character, in coat, in the shape of its horns, 

 and in its peculiar odor, which differs in all 



A MouFLOX Raji 



Mn^KiNc; A Siii'-.KP 



animals. The docilit)' and stupidity of the sheep 

 are as unlike the sa\'age temper, vivacity, and 

 obstinac)' of the goat as its crinkled wool is 

 unlike the latter's wax'ing hair. 



II. Okicin 



There are different opinions regarding 

 the origin of the sheep, some naturalists 

 giving them for ancestor the mouflon of 

 Armenia and Persia, others the argali of 

 Siberia and central Asia, while some again 

 discover their forerunners in the Oural 

 shee}5 of the Himalayas, in the Buhel or 

 blue sheep of the |)lains cif central Asia, 

 or in the bighorns of Kamchatka anil Alaska 

 and the Rocky Mnuntains tif America. 



The argalis are the largest of all «-ikl 

 sheep, attaining sometimes to a height of 

 three and a half feet. They inhabit the 

 rocky slojjes of southern Siberia and north- 

 ern Mongolia and ha\-e much in lommon 

 with the bighorn. A smaller species in- 

 habits the plateau of Tibet, descending to 

 the plains in winter. Verv large and heav)' 

 argalis are found on the plateau of Pamir, 

 over eighteen hundred feet above sea level. 



The mouflon lives in the mountains of 

 Persia and Armenia and on the islands 

 of Cyprus, Sardinia, and Corsica ; formerly 



Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 



