To the east of the principal range of the wild sheep in America to-day there are still a few of its old haunts not in the mountains which are so arid or so rough, or where the water is so bad that as yet they have not to any great extent been invaded by the white man. Again to the south and southwest, in portions of Arizona, Old Mexico, and Lower California, there rise out of frightful deserts buttes and mountain ranges inhabited by different forms of sheep. In that country water is extremely scarce, and the few water holes that exist are visited by the sheep only at long intervals. There are many men who believe that the sheep do not drink at all, but it is chiefly at these water holes that the sheep of the desert are killed. At the present day the chief haunts of the mountain sheep are the fresh Alpine meadows lying close to timber line, and fenced in by tall peaks; or the rounded grassy slopes which extend from timber line up to the region of perpetual snows. Sitting on the point of some tall mountain the observer may look down on the green meadows, interspersed perhaps with little clumps of low willows which grow along the tiny watercourses whose sources are the snow banks far up the mountain side, and if patient in his watch and faithful in his search, he may detect with his glasses at first one or two, and gradually more and more, until at length perhaps ten, fifteen or thirty sheep may be counted, scattered over a considerable area of country. Or, if he climbs higher yet, and overlooks the rounded shoulders which stretch up from the passes toward the highest pinnacles of all--he will very likely see far below him, lying on the hill and commanding a view miles in extent in every direction, a group of nine, ten or a dozen sheep peacefully resting in the midday sun. Those that he sees will be almost all of them ewes and young animals. Perhaps there may be a young ram or two whose horns have already begun to curve backward, but for the most part they are females and young. The question that the hunter is always asking himself is where are the big rams? Now and then, to be sure, more by accident than by any wisdom of his own, he stumbles on some monster of the rocks, but of the sheep that he sees in his wanderings, not one in a hundred has a head so large as to make him consider it a trophy worth possessing. It is commonly declared that in summer the big rams are "back along the range," by which it is meant that they are close to the summits of the tallest peaks. It is probable that this is true, and that they gather by twos and threes on these tall peaks, and, not moving about very much, escape observation.