The first shot I fired at this band gave me a surprise. I drew my sight fine on the point of the breast of the leading animal and pulled the trigger, but instead of the explosion which should have followed I heard the hammer fall on the firing-pin. There was a slow hissing sound, a little puff at the muzzle of the rifle, and I distinctly heard the leaden ball fall to the ground just in front of me. In a moment I had reloaded and had killed the sheep before it had passed far beyond me; but for a few seconds I could not comprehend what had happened. Then it came back to me that a few days before I had made from half a dozen cartridges a weight to attach to a fish line for the purpose of sounding the depth of a lake. Evidently a lubricating wad had been imperfect, and dampness had reached the powder. Like others of our ungulates, wild sheep are great frequenters of "licks"--places where the soil has been more or less impregnated with saline solutions. These licks are visited frequently--perhaps daily--during the summer months by sheep of all ages, and such points are favorite watching places for men who need meat, and wish to secure it as easily as possible. At a certain lick in northern Montana, shots at sheep may be had almost any day by the man who is willing to watch for them. In the summer of 1903 a bunch of nine especially good rams visited a certain lick each day. The guide of a New York man who was hunting there in June--of course in violation of the law--took him to the lick. The first day nine rams came, and the New Yorker, after firing many shots, frightened them all away. Perhaps he hit some of them, for the next day only seven returned, of which three were killed. In British Columbia I have seen twenty-five or thirty sheep working at a lick, from which the earth had been eaten away, so that great hollows and ravines were cut out in many directions from the central spring. Examination of such licks in cold--freezing--weather, seems to show that the sheep do not then visit them. I have seen mule deer and sheep nibbling the soil in company, and have seen white goats visit a lick frequented also by sheep.