518 
VERTEBRATx^. 
THE RUFFED MOUFLOK. MEEINO SHEEP. 
than three feet m height at the shoulders. It is ■wonderfully agile, and leaps amazing distances 
from one cliff to another. This species is clearly delineated on the monuments of Egypt. 
The Rocky Mountain Sheep — the Big Horn of Lewis and Clark ; the Argali of Godman ; 
the Moujlon cV Ameriqtie of Desmarest — M. montanus, is a larger animal than the Mouflon, and 
fully equals the Argali. The male appears like a powerful ram ; the female resembles an ante- 
lope. The horns of the male are enormous, measuring aroimd the curve two feet and ten inches 
long; sometimes these bend so much forward and downward as to preyent the animal from 
feeding on the level ground. The weight of one of this species is about three hundred 
pounds. The hair is coarse and slightly crimped, but has no resemblance to wool ; at the roots, 
however, there is a small quantity of soft fur. The color above is a light grayish-brown ; beneath, 
it is grayish-white. The young are produced, one and sometimes two at a time, in June and July. 
In general, these animals are shy and wild, but in some secluded regions they seem not to have 
learned to fear mankind, and are approached without difficulty. Their flesh is excellent. They 
live in small flocks on the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains, from latitude 30° to 68° north. 
They are said also to be met with in the plains west of the Mississippi, and in the mountains of 
California and Oregon. Dr. Gray, with good reason, thinks this animal the same as the Argali 
of Siberia and Kamtschatka. This might have crossed at Behring's Straits, in some remote pe- 
riod, and thus have stocked the northwestern regions of America. 
G-enus SHEEP : Ovis. — Of this, which includes the Domestic Sheep, there are perhaps forty 
well-known varieties. "With the exception of the dog," says a graphic writer, "there is no one 
of the brute creation which exhibits the diversity of size, color, form, covering, and general appear- 
ance, which characterizes the sheep, and none which occupies a wider range of climate, or subsists 
on a greater variety of food. In every latitude between the equator and the arctic, he ranges 
over the sterile mountains, and through the fertile valleys. He feeds on almost every species of 
edible forage, the cultivated grasses, clovei's, cereals, and roots; he browses on aromatic and bit- 
ter herbs ; he crops the leaves and bark from the stunted forest shrubs, and the pungent, resinous 
evergreens. In some parts of Norway and Sweden, when other resources fail, he subsists on fish 
