FRANK FORESTER'S FIELD SPORTS. 
M2 
MOUNTAIN SPORTS. 
PON the highest crags and ridges 
of the Rocky Mountains, where no 
foot of man, save that of a few 
hold explorers or daring trappers, 
has frayed the virgin snows, dwells, 
almost unknown, in his unap¬ 
proached, secure solitudes, the 
Wild Goat of the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains ; for though he has been in¬ 
correctly styled a Sheep, such is his proper name and order. 
Little is known of his haunts, of his habits, less. No very 
accurate description exists, so far as I can discover, even of its 
appearance ; that given by Godman, which I have quoted above, 
being both bald and contradictory, inasmuch as in one line he 
states that “ the traders do not consider its fleece of much 
worthand ten lines lower, on the same page, asserts that “ it 
is said that the fleece of this Goat is as fine as that of the cele¬ 
brated Shawl Goat of Cashmere.” 
Thus far had I written in my first edition of this work, and had 
proceeded to speculate, in some degree, on the nature of the ani¬ 
mal, perceiving that there were irreconcilable difficulties in God- 
man’s account of the animal, though I did not then suspect that 
two animals were confounded as one—videlicet, the Rocky 
Mountain Goat— which is a short-horned, bearded animal, cov¬ 
ered with a thick fleecy wool, intermingled with fine thin hairs— 
and The Wild Sheep of America, of naturalists—the Ahsahta, 
or Bighorn, of the Western hunters—which is a true Sheep, 
