THE MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 
IGHHORN is the name by 
which this interesting 
animal is chiefly known 
to western people, it being 
found in greater or less 
abundance from the Missouri River 
to the Pacific Ocean. It also occurs 
in New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern 
California, but it has not been dis- 
covered in any numbers south of 
the United States. It is more numer- 
ous in the Rocky Mountains, the 
Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the 
Coast Range, but it is by no means 
confined to the mountains, being also 
numerous along the Mauvaises Terres 
or the "Bad Lands" of the White 
River, the Little Missouri, Yellow- 
stone, and Upper Missouri, in whose 
desolate and arid wastes it apparently 
delights. The Bighorn, in fact, finds 
in every rough country sufficient for 
its requirements, and it demands only 
that there shall be steep and difficult 
heights to which it may retreat when 
pursued. Every species of sheep 
would prefer a hilly habitat, but the 
Bighorn could scarcely exist on a 
level plain. 
Somebody has said that Mountain 
Sheep would be aptly described as 
having the head of a sheep with the 
body of a deer. In size, however, it 
exceeds the largest deer, and a full- 
grown specimen will weigh from 300 
to 350 pounds. Sir John Richardson 
gives the following measurements of 
an old male: Length to end of tail, 
6 feet; height at shoulder, 3 feet 5 
inches; length of tail, 2 inches; length 
of horn along the curve, 2 feet 10 
inches; circumference of horn at the 
base, 1 foot 1 inch; distance from top 
of one horn to top of its fellow, 2 feet 
3 inches. The coat is soft to the 
touch, the hair resembling that of the 
Caribou Deer, and, in some degree, 
that of the Antelope. It is short, fine, 
and flexible in its first growth in the 
autumn, but becomes longer as the 
season advances, until in winter the 
hair is so thick and close set that it 
stands erect. As the winter advances 
the dark tips of the hair are rubbed off 
so that by spring the old males are 
quite white. Under the hair a fine 
wool covers the skin. 
The movements of the Bighorn are 
quite graceful, and the agility and 
lightness with which it scales steep 
bluffs, runs along the narrowest edge 
on the face of a precipice, or leaps 
from rock to rock in its descent from 
some mountain-top, are excelled by no 
other animal. These Sheep feed early 
in the morning, and retire during the 
middle of the day to points high up 
on the bluffs or mountains where they 
rest until sundown, when they return 
to their feeding grounds. Except 
during the month of December the 
old rams are found in small bands by 
themselves, the females and young 
associating together in companies of 
from five to twenty. In a country where 
they have not been disturbed by man 
they are occasionally seen in much 
larger herds. 
No animal is more shy and wary 
than the Bighorn, and it therefore 
requires in its successful pursuit the 
greatest patience and deliberation, as, 
if it receives the slightest hint of the 
enemy's presence, it immediately dis- 
appears. Many a hunter of experience 
has never killed a Mountain Sheep, as 
these vigilant mountain climbers are 
usually able to elude their enemies. 
The instinct of self-preservation is 
remarkably developed in the Mountain 
Sheep, and only animals of equal agil- 
ity and superior cunning can secure 
them. In their mountain fastnesses 
they are comparatively free from the 
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