THE MOUNTAIN SHEEP 
107 
Park received, as a gift from Mr. William C. Whit- 
ney, a female Musk-Ox twenty-one months old, 
captured on the Barren Grounds north of Great 
Bear Lake, about Latitude 69°. This specimen 
died of acute pneumonia on August 16, 1902. 
In September, 1902, a very small female Musk- 
Ox calf, captured by Commander Robert E. 
Peary, at Fort Conger (Latitude 81°), was re- 
ceived in the New York Zoological Park, as a gift 
from the Peary Arctic Club. It died in October. 
In 1903 (July) five Musk-Ox calves, one male 
and four females, arrived at Tromsoe, Norway, 
from Greenland, and were offered for sale to zoo- 
logical gardens generally. 
The first specimen exhibited in the New York 
Zoological Park, in 1902, was captured in March, 
1901, thirty miles from the Arctic Ocean, directly 
north of Great Bear Lake, by a party of Eskimo 
hunters and whalers sent by Captain H. H. Bod- 
fish, from the steam whaler Beluga. Its price, 
delivered in New York in good health, was$l,600. 
When two years old it stood 3 feet 2 inches high 
at the shoulders, and was 4 feet 10 inches in 
length. Its food was clover hay, raw carrots or 
potatoes, a little green grass when in season, and 
occasionally a few apples. 
The Mountain Sheep. 
High on the mountain’s frowning crest, 
Where lines of rugged cliff stand forth, 
Where Nature bravely bares her breast 
To snowy whirlwinds from the north; 
High in the clouds and mountain storms, 
Where first the autumn snows appear, 
Where last the breath of springtime warms, 
— There dwells my gallant mountaineer. 
And truly he is a gallant mountaineer. Wher- 
ever found, the mountain sheep is a fine, sturdy 
animal, keen-eyed, bold, active and strong. It 
fears no storm, and defies all enemies save man 
and domestic sheep. From the former it re- 
ceives bullets, from the latter, disease. Whether 
its home is the highest crags of the saw-tooth 
ranges, the boldest rim-rock of the mountain 
plateaus, or the most rugged “bad-lands,” it is 
always found amid the scenery that is grandest 
and most inspiring. 
In summer, its favorite pastures are the tree- 
less slopes above timber-line, where, on our 
northern mountains, grasses and wild flowers 
grow in astonishing profusion. When the raging 
storms and deep snows of winter drive the elk 
and deer down into the valleys for shelter and 
food, the mountain sheep makes no perceptible 
change in altitude. 
All the year round, this animal is well fed, and 
its savory flesh invites constant pursuit by the 
mountain lion, and by hunters both white and 
red. The massive, curving horns and hand- 
some head of the adult ram, taken amid grand 
mountain scenery, with much difficulty and no 
little danger, constitute, in my judgment, one of 
the finest trophies that a true sportsman can win. 
But it must be clean, and not haunted by the 
ghosts of slaughtered ewes and lambs! One 
of the greatest days of my life was that on 
which I pursued and killed, alone, amid the 
grandeur of the Shoshone Mountains, my first 
big mountain ram. It was then that I learned 
how much a mountain sheep needs to be seen 
in its native cloudland in order to be fully appre- 
ciated. It is an animal for which my admira- 
tion is as boundless as the glories of its moun- 
tain home. 
The mountain sheep is a bold and even reck- 
less climber. It is robust and strong on its legs, 
yet active withal, and capable of feats of en- 
durance that really are astonishing. It can- 
not, and never did, “leap from a height, and 
alight upon its horns,” — save by some neck- 
breaking; accident. When pursued it can, how- 
ever, dash down an appalling declivity, touching 
here and there, and land in safety, when to the 
observer it seems certain to be dashed to death. 
The young are born in May or June, above 
timber-line if possible, among the most danger- 
ous and inaccessible crags and precipices that 
the mother can find. Her idea is to have her 
offspring begin its life in places so steep and 
dangerous that a very slight effort on its part will 
suffice to keep it beyond the reach of foes. The 
lamb’s most dangerous enemy is the eagle, 
against which the mother successfully guards it. 
Except the burrhel and aoudad, any adult 
mountain sheep, from either the Old World or 
the New, can readily be recognized by its mas- 
sive, round-curving horns, which, when seen 
in profile, describe from one-half to three-fourths 
of a circle, or more. No wild animals other than 
wild sheep have circling horns. The largest spe- 
cies of wild sheep are found in Asia, and are 
