Somebody has said that Mountain Sheep would be aptly described as having the head of a sheep with the body of a deer. In size, however, it exceeds the largest deer, and a full-grown specimen will weigh from 300 to 350 pounds. Sir John Richardson gives the following measurements of an old male: Length to end of tail, 6 feet; height at shoulder, 3 feet 5 inches; length of tail, 2 inches; length of horn along the curve, 2 feet 10 inches; circumference of horn at the base, 1 foot 1 inch; distance from top of one horn to top of its fellow, 2 feet 3 inches. The coat is soft to the touch, the hair resembling that of the Caribou Deer, and, in some degree, that of the Antelope. It is short, fine, and flexible in its first growth in the autumn, but becomes longer as the season advances, until in winter the hair is so thick and close set that it stands erect. As the winter advances the dark tips of the hair are rubbed off so that by spring the old males are quite white. Under the hair a fine wool covers the skin. The movements of the Bighorn are quite graceful, and the agility and lightness with which it scales steep bluffs, runs along the narrowest edge on the face of a precipice, or leaps from rock to rock in its descent from some mountain-top, are excelled by no other animal. These Sheep feed early in the morning, and retire during the middle of the day to points high up on the bluffs or mountains where they rest until sundown, when they return to their feeding grounds. Except during the month of December the old rams are found in small bands by themselves, the females and young associating together in companies of from five to twenty. In a country where they have not been disturbed by man they are occasionally seen in much larger herds. No animal is more shy and wary than the Bighorn, and it therefore requires in its successful pursuit the greatest patience and deliberation, as, if it receives the slightest hint of the enemy's presence, it immediately disappears. Many a hunter of experience has never killed a Mountain Sheep, as these vigilant mountain climbers are usually able to elude their enemies. [Illustration: From col. Mr. F. Kaempfer. MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 1/10 Life-size. Copyright by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.]