districts of western North America from the desert regions of the Colorado
river and Arizona northwards into British Columbia, where the present
race not improbably intergrades with the next. ’ Examples from the Yellowstone
river, like the mounted ram in the British Museum, have somewhat
less massive horns than those from Wyoming and Colorado, but in other
respects appear to be indistinguishable.
Habits.— It is the custom of American sportsmen to speak of the Rocky
Mountain bighorn as inhabiting the most inaccessible precipitous cliffs,
thus giving the idea that in its mode of life it is more like a goat than
the wild sheep of the Old World. According, however, to Mr. Philliplg
Wolley, in his account of this animal published in the Badminton Library,
this is quite a mistaken notion. Bighorn, he observes, are undoubtedly
sometimes found in difficult and even dangerous places, but to- describe
sheep-shooting as anything like chamois or ibex-hunting is .a. mistake. In
this respect-, therefore, the bighorn does not depart so widely from the
habits of other wild sheep as might easily be imagined tojbe the case from
the accounts given by many writers.
For the following notes 1 am indebted to Mr. E. S. Cameron E -B ig -"
horn are found in the “ bad-lands” of the Yellowstone, Missouri, %nd
Powder valleys, and are met with in flocks of from five to fifty individuals
they are very gregarious, and in my experience under no circumstances
ever remain alone for long. The flocks,, when undisturbed, seek the prairie
to feed at daylight, returning to the bad-lands at nine or ten o'clock to rest
until the afternoon, when they will again rise to feed among the bad-landlg
often returning to the prairie in the evening, and grazing until dark. So
far as I am aware, they never feed at night like the mule-deer. Their food
consists of grass and three varieties of sage-plant, known locally as sweet
sage, sour sage, and salt sage, but I have never known them to eat any wild
fruits or berries such as are sought by the deer. Like these, they obtain their
food in winter by scraping away the snow, and in summer they graze like
the domestic merinos, with which they sometimes associate on the prairie.
I do not think that they can be reared in captivity without some kind of
wild Sage. They resemble mule-deer in frequenting a certain range of badlands,
and always watering at the same spring, but are more shy, deserting
the locality at,.phe first alarm. In time of security the flock is led by an
Mid ram, but when danger threatens he becomes a rearguard, and a ewe
assumes the lead. ThiHram (excepting during the pairing season) would
appear to be the psual -sentinel, as he may be seen on the top of a high
butte, while all the rest of the flock are hidden in gulches below—but no
demoralisation occurs i f the leader is killed, another sheep taking the
initiative, and the flock qiijekly vanishing.
About the second week in November the old rams fight savagely for
the' ■ eweij but the young rams pair earlier, and I shot a five-year-old which
had Collected S m e ewes on 29th October. The victors collect and herd
as many ewes as they can, /rom five to a dozen being a usual number with
one ram, while the disappointed males wander about alone ; but ■ the
p tsg so r of ewes may lose them at any timeSolitary rams being always.ion
the lookout to give battle. The yearling and twcBeaekold trams remain
with the ewes ; and although occasionally chased away by him, in the
main the leader pays but little attention to them.
When the pairing season is over the sheep of all ages and both sexes
flock- together again until May, when the ewes drop out singly from the
main fjipdy t® bring forth their lambs. At this time large flocks of rams
may be seen, locally called:*'“ buck herds ” ; twenty-three ojf all ages, from
yearlings upwards, having been counted in the bad-lands opposite Terry.
The ewes generally have a single lamb at a birth, although rarely they are
fbijljiwed by twins. The dam carefully concealslgfbe newly-born lamb
amidst sage-brush or weeds in the bad-lands, from which she never goes
any considerable distance. In three jsfbur days the lamb, which resembles
the parents infeolour, comes" o u tE f its concealment to follow the ewe, and