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Mountain Sheep — Part 2
Images coming soon.
"Their ideal haunts," writes Hornaday, "are the slopes of high mountains, above timber line, near the edge of the snow fields that are perpetual." These he states are often covered with luxuriant grass as well as gray moss. In winter they seek lower altitudes and frequent the glades of the pine woods known as "mountain parks." "It is essential, however, that one side of the mountain sheep's home ranch should fall away abruptly in ragged lines of perpendicular rim-rock, with acres of slide-rock below, in order that the sheep may have the means of escape from their numerous enemies, particularly hunters."
"I once had an illustration of the mountain sheep's tactics on a mountain top where the rock seemed poorly provided for means of escape. Two old rams were feeding at an elevation of about 9,000 feet. The snow was fourteen inches in depth, with a slight crust upon it. When first seen they were in a fifteen-acre open meadow, near the edge of the rim-rock, bravely pawing through the snow to reach the longest of the dry, brown stems of bunchgrass that thrust their heads half way up through it. On finding themselves objects of a hunter's special notice the two rams quietly dropped over the sharp edge of the plateau, ploughed down a narrow cleft filled with slide-rock and disappeared. Pursuit on their trail led down to the foot of a 200-foot wall of rim-rock, and close along its base for a long distance. At last the trail went farther down and dropped over the next lower wall of rim-rock in a manner that seemed deliberately calculated to make pursuit more laborious. As a change of tactics the hunt was kept up along the top of the rim-rock, but the quarry hugged the wall so closely that not even once was it sighted. It became evident that only by hours of patient work could those animals be encountered again, if at all."
Like the caribou the bighorns from different sections of the country present a very different appearance not only in colour, but in the size and shape of their horns, and instead of the one species which was known to our early explorers we have now seven species or varieties, all, however, animals of essentially similar habits.
Varieties of Mountain Sheep
1. Mountain Sheep. Ovis cervina Desmarest. Description and range as above.
2. Audubon's Sheep. Ovis cervina auduboni Merriam. Slightly different skull characters from the Rocky Mountain animal to which it is very closely related.
3. Nelson's Sheep. Ovis nelsoni Merriam. Similar, but much paler.
4. Mexican Sheep. Ovis mexicanus Merriam. Intermediate in colour between the mountain and Nelson's sheep. Ears much longer than those of the former.
5. Stone's Sheep. Ovis stonei Allen. Darker than the mountain sheep, with much more slender horns.
6. Dall's Sheep. Ovis dalli Nelson. White or yellowish-white at all seasons.
7. Fannin's Sheep. Ovis fannini Hornaday. Similar, but shoulders, back and upper parts of legs gray.