American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
History
American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
Big game hunting -- United States
To-day, if one can climb above timber line in summer to the beautiful
green alpine meadows just below the frowning snow-clad peaks in regions
where sheep may still be found, his eye may yet be gladdened by the
sight of a little group resting on the soft grass far from any cover
that might shelter an enemy. If disturbed, the sheep get up
deliberately, take a long careful look, and walking slowly toward the
rocks, clamber out of harm's way. It will be labor wasted to follow
them.
Such sights may be witnessed still in portions of Montana and British
Columbia, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado, where bald, rolling mountains,
showing little or no rock, are frequented by the sheep, which graze over
the uplands, descending at midday to the valleys to drink, and then
slowly working their way up the hills again to their illimitable
pastures.
Of Dall's sheep, the white Alaskan form, we are told that its favorite
feeding grounds are bald hills and elevated plateaus, and although when
pursued and wounded it takes to precipitous cliffs, and perhaps even to
tall mountain peaks, the land of its choice appears to be not rough
rocks, but rather the level or rolling upland.
The sheep formerly was a gentle, unsuspicious animal, curious and
confiding rather than shy; now it is noted in many regions for its
alertness, wariness, and ability to take care of itself.
Richardson, in his "Fauni-Boreali Americana," says: "Mr. Drummond
informs me that in the retired part of the mountains, where hunters had
seldom penetrated, he found no difficulty in approaching the Rocky
Mountain sheep, which there exhibited the simplicity of character so
remarkable in the domestic species; but that where they had been often
fired at they were exceedingly wild, alarmed their companions on the
approach of danger by a hissing noise, and scaled the rocks with a speed
and agility that baffled pursuit." The mountain men of early days tell
precisely the same thing of the sheep. Fifty or sixty years ago they
were regarded as the gentlest and most unsuspicious animal of all the
prairie, excepting, of course, the buffalo. They did not understand that
the sound of a gun meant danger, and, when shot at, often merely jumped
about and stared, acting much as in later times the elk and the mule
deer acted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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