96 
ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
goat and that described by Homer ages ago, utterly lost 
sight of during all intervening time, and only lately re-dis- 
covered in the islands of the Levant. This animal is often 
confounded with the next species. 
The Rocky Mountain Sheep, or Argali (Ovis Mon- 
tana ), called also the Cimaron. 
Description . — Larger than the common sheep ; ’the ears 
pointed ; the horns which are transversely wrinkled, large, 
and triangular, are twisted laterally into a spiral ; the limbs 
are slender, and covered with, uniform short hair. 
These animals are confined exclusively to the Rocky 
Mountains : they are met with in herds of from twenty to 
thirty, but are very wary. They feed on the tops of the ridges, 
with posted sentinels ever watchful ; and their great quickness 
of sight and hearing, render them perhaps the most difficult to 
approach of all the four-footed game of America. They have 
immense horns, especially the old males, in whom they are 
so enormous that from their curving forward and downward 
to such an extent, they preclude them from feeding on level 
ground. 
It is necessary therefore for them to seek the pasture on 
steep places above them, or to browse on the long herbage 
on the margin of the water-courses. They are usually found 
about grassy knolls skirted by craggy rocks, to which they 
can retreat when pursued by dogs or wolves. The Indian 
appellation for them is “ the foolish bear,” for in the retired 
parts of the mountains, where no fire-arms have been used, 
they are quite tame, exhibiting the simplicity of the domestic 
sheep ; but when they have been often fired at, they assume 
the wild and vigilant character under which they are generally 
described. In its facility of leaping from crag to crag it 
resembles the chamois of the Alps. 
An attempt was made some years ago to obtain some 
young of this species and domesticate them in the Scotch 
mountains for the sake of their fleece, which far excels that 
