MAY 10 1920 
SCRIBNER'S MON'I^HLY. 
Vol. XXII. MAY, i88i. No. i. 
THE WILD SHEEP OF THE SIERRA. 
The wild sheep ranks highest among the 
animal mountaineers of the Sierra. Pos- 
sessed of keen sight and scent, immovable 
nerve, and strong limbs, he dwells secure 
amid the loftiest summits of the Alps, from 
one extremity of the range to the other; 
leaping unscathed from crag to crag, up and 
down the fronts of giddy precipices, crossing 
foaming torrents and slopes of frozen snow, 
exposed to the wildest storms, yet maintain- 
ing a brave, warm life, and developing from 
generation to generation in perfect strength 
and beauty. 
Nearly all the lofty mountain chains of 
the globe are inhabited by wild sheep, which, 
by the best naturalists, are classified under 
five distinct species. These are the argali 
[Ovis ammo7i. Linn.), found throughout all 
the principal ranges of Asia ; the burrhal 
( Ovis burrhel) of the upper Himalayas; the 
Corsican moufflon {^Ovis miisimon^ Pal-)j 
the African wild sheep {^Ovis tragelephiis, 
Cuv.) ; and the American big horn, or 
Rocky Mountain sheep [Ovis montaiia^ 
Cuv.) To this last-named species belongs 
the wild sheep of the Sierra Nevada. Its 
range, according to Professor Baird, of the 
Smithsonian Institution, extends " from the 
region of the upper Missouri and Yellow- 
stone, to the Rocky Mountains and the high 
grounds adjacent to them on the eastern 
slope, and as far south as the Rio Grande. 
Westward it extends to the coast ranges of 
Washington Territory, Oregon, and Cali- 
fornia, and follows the highlands some 
distance into Mexico."* Throughout the 
vast region bounded on the east and west 
by the Wasatch Mountains and the Sierra, 
there are more than a hundred independent 
ranges and mountain groups, trending north 
and south in close succession, range beyond 
* Pacific Railroad Survey, Vol. viii., page 678. 
Vol. XXIL— I. 
I range, with summits rising from eight to 
twelve thousand feet above the level of the 
sea, every one of which, according to my 
own observations, is, or has been, inhabited 
by this species. 
Compared with the argali, which, con- 
sidering its size and the vast extent of its 
range, is probably the most important of all 
the wild sheep, our species is, perhaps, a 
little larger, and the horns are more regu- 
larly curved, and less divergent. The more 
important characteristics are, however, essen- 
tially the same, some of the best naturalists 
maintaining that the two are only varied 
forms of one species. In accordance with this 
view, Cuvier conjectures that the argali may 
have been distributed over this continent 
from Asia by crossing Behring Straits on ice. 
On account of the extreme variability of 
the sheep under culture, it is generally sup- 
posed that the innumerable domestic breeds 
have all been derived from the few wild 
species ; but the whole question is involved 
in obscurity. According to Darwin, sheep 
have been domesticated from a very ancient 
period, the remains of a small breed, differ- 
ing from any now known, having been 
j found in the famous Swiss lake dwellings. 
Compared with the best-known domestic 
breeds, we find that our wild species is 
more than twice as large; and, instead of 
an all-wool garment, the wild wears a thick 
overcoat of hair like that of the deer, and 
an under-covering of fine wool. The hair, 
though rather coarse, is comfortably soft and 
spongy, and lies smooth, as if carefully 
tended with comb and brush. The pre- 
dominant color during most of the year is 
brownish- gray, varying to bluish-gray in 
the autumn ; the belly and a large, con- 
spicuous patch on the buttocks are white ; 
and the tail, which is very shor];, like that 
of a deer, is black, with a yellowish border. 
[Copyright, 1881, by Scribner & Co. All rights reserved ] 
