THE WILD SHEEP OF THE SIERRA. 
3 
of something only half alive, while the wild I 
is as elegant and graceful as a deer, and i 
every movement tells the strength and ' 
grandeur of his character. The tame is 
timid ; the wild is bold. The tame is 
always more or less ruffled and dirty ; while 
the wild is as smooth and clean as the j 
flowers of his mountain pastures. 
The earhest mention that I have been { 
able to find of the wild sheep in America is 
by Father Picolo, a Catholic missionary at 
Monterey, in the year 1797, who, after 
describing it, oddly enough, as " a kind of 
deer with a sheep-like head, and about as 
large as a calf one or two years old," natu- 
rally hurries on to remark : " I have eaten 
of these beasts ; tlieir flesh is very tender 
and delicious." Mackenzie, in his northern 
travels, heard the species spoken of by the 
Indians as " white buffaloes." And Lewis 
and Clark tell us that, in a time of great 
scarcity on the head-waters of the Missouri, 
they saw plenty of wild sheep, but they 
were " too shy to be shot." 
A few of the more energetic of the Pah 
Ute Indians hunt the wild sheep every, 
season 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 King's rivers take 
their rise, they fear no hunter save the wolf, 
and are more guileless and approachable 
than their tame kindred. 
I have been greatly interested in studying 
their habits during the last ten years, while 
engaged in the work of exploring those high 
regions where they deHght to roam. In 
tlie months of November and December, 
and probably during a considerable portion 
of midwinter, they all flock together, male 
and female, old and young. I once found a 
completebandof this kind numbering upward 
of fifty, which, on being alarmed, went bound- 
ing away across a jagged lava-bed at admi- 
rable speed, led by a majestic old ram, with 
the lambs safe in the middle of the flock. | 
In spring and summer, the full-grown 1 
rams form separate bands of from three to j 
twenty, and are usually found feeding along ■ 
the edges of glacier meadows, or resting 
among the castle-like crags of the high 
summits; and whether quietly feeding, or 
scaling the wild cliffs for pleasure, their 
noble forms, and the power and beauty of 
their movements, never fail to strike the 
beholder with lively admiration. 
Their resting-place seems to be chosen 
with reference to sunshine and a wide out- 
look, and most of all to safety from the 
attacks of wolves. Their feeding-grounds 
are among the most beautiful of the wild 
gardens, bright with daisies, and gentians, 
and mats of purple bryanthus, lying hidden 
away on rocky headlands and canon sides, 
where sunshine is abundant, or down in 
shady glagier valleys, along the banks of 
the streams and lakes, where the plushy sod 
is greenest. Here they feast all summer, 
the happy wanderers, perhaps relishing the 
beauty as well as the taste of the lovely 
flora on which they feed, however slow 
tame men may be to guess their capacity 
beyond grass. 
When winter storms set in, loading their 
highland pastures with snow, then, like the 
birds, they gather and go to warmer 
climates, usually descending the eastern 
flank of the range to the rough, volcanic 
table-lands and treeless ranges of the Great 
Basin adjacent to the Sierra. They never 
make haste, however, and seem to have no 
dread of storms, many of the strongest only 
going down leisurely to bare, wind-swept 
ridges, to feed on bushes and dry bunch- 
grass, and then returning up into the snow. 
Once I was snow^-bound on Mount Shasta 
for three days, a little below the timber-hne. 
It was a dark and stormy time, well calcu- 
lated to test the skill and endurance of 
mountaineers. The snow-laden gale drove 
on night and day in hissing, blinding floods, 
and when at length it began to abate, I 
found that a small band of wild sheep had 
weathered the storm in the lee of a clump of 
dwarf pines a few yards above my storm -nest, 
where the snow was eight or ten feet deep. 
I was warm back of a rock, with blankets, 
bread, and fire. My brave companions lay 
in the snow, without food, and with only the 
partial shelter of the short trees, yet made 
no sign of sutfering or faint-heartedness. 
In the months of May and June, they 
bring forth their young, in the most solitary 
and inaccessible crags, far above the nesting- 
rocks of the eagle. I have frequently come 
upon the beds of the ewes and lambs at an 
elevation of from twelve to thirteen thou- 
sand feet above sea-level. These beds are 
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 
