The Animal World, A Book of Natural History: Young Folks' Treasury (Volume V)Wood, Theodore
General
The Animal World, A Book of Natural History: Young Folks' Treasury (Volume V)
Wood, Theodore
Animals -- Juvenile literature
North America has its parallel to the argalis in the famous bighorn. It
is now very rare even in Northern Canada, and becoming scarce in the
United States, though a few are found here and there at various points
on the Rocky Mountains as far south as Mexico. In habits it is much the
same as other wild sheep--that is to say, it haunts the rock-hills and
"bad lands" near the mountains, feeding on the scanty herbage of the
high ground, and not descending unless driven down by snow.
[Illustration: WILD SHEEP AND GOATS
1. Chamois. 2. Moufflon.
3. Argali. 4. Markhor.]
The bighorn sheep are very partial to salt. Mr. Turner, who hunted them
in British Columbia, says: "Wild sheep make periodical excursions to the
mountain-tops to gorge themselves with salty clay. They may remain from
an hour to two days, and when killed their stomachs will be found full
of nothing but the clay formed from denuded limestone, which they lick
and gnaw until sometimes deep tunnels are formed in the cliffs, large
enough to hide six or seven sheep. The hunter, standing over one of
these warrens, may bolt them within two yards of him. In the dead of
winter sheep often come to the woods to feed on fir-trees. At such times
they may be seen mixed with black-and-white-tailed deer, low on a
river-bank. I have known them come within forty yards of an inhabited
hut."
Mr. H. C. Nelson tells us that once he was sleeping with two other
friends in a hut in the mountains where some miners had lived for a
time. These men, when they washed up their pots and pans, threw the
slops away at a certain place close by the hut. As all water used for
cooking meat has salt put into it, a little salt remained on the
surface. This the wild sheep had found out, and were in the habit of
coming to lick it at night.
The bighorn sheep stands from three feet two inches to three feet six
inches at the shoulder. The horns are of the general type of the
argalis, but smoother. Another bighorn is found in Kamchatka. There is
also a beautiful white race of bighorn inhabiting Alaska. The typical
Rocky Mountain race is browner than the Asiatic argalis, and in winter
is dark even beneath the front parts of the body. It is not found on the
high peaks of the great ranges, but on difficult though lower ground on
the minor hills.
THE URIAL
The vast range of the Himalayas affords feeding-ground to other species
of wild sheep and wild goat, so different in the shape of the horns that
the variations of the sheep race under domestication need not be matter
for wonder when so much variety is seen in nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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