Sheep are cool-headed fellows, as well befits those who are intimately associated with precipices. But one day, while slowly descending a steep slope, I unintentionally threw a flock into confusion. Bunched and interested, they watched me approach within sixty or seventy feet. I had been close to them before and this time while moving closer I tried to manipulate my camera. An awkward exhibition of a fall resulted. The sheep, lost in curiosity, fled without looking where they leaped. The second bound landed them upon an icy pitch where everyone lost footing, fell, and slid several yards to the bottom of the slope. All regained their feet and in regular form ran off at high speed. Accidents do befall them. Occasionally one tumbles to death or is crushed by falling stone. Sometimes the weaker ones are unable to get out of deep snow. On rare occasions a mountain lion comes upon them and slays one or several, while they are almost helpless from weakness or from crusted snow. A few times I have known of one or more to be carried down to death by a snowslide. While the sheep do not have many neighbours, they do have sunny days. Often the heights, for long periods, are sunny and snowless. Sometimes a storm may rage for days down the slopes while the sheep, in or entirely above the upper surface of the storm cloud, do not receive any snow. Among their resident neighbours are the cony, the white weasel, and flocks of rosy finches and white ptarmigan. In these the sheep show no interest, but they keep on the watch for subtle foxes, bob-cats, and lions. Snowfall, like rainfall, is unevenly distributed. At times a short distance below the snow-piled heights one or both slopes are snowless; at other times, the summits are bare while the lowlands are overburdened with snow. Sheep appear quickly to discover and promptly to use any advantage afforded by their range. One snowy winter an almost famished flock of sheep started for the lowlands. Two thousand feet lower the earth in places lay brown and snowless in the sun. Whether this condition led the sheep downward, or whether the good condition of the lowland was unknown to them and they came in desperation, I know not. Already weak, they did not get down to timberline the first day. The night was spent against a cliff in deep snow. The following morning a dead one was left at the foot of the cliff and the others struggled on downward, bucking their way through the deep snow. In snow the strongest one commonly leads. Sometimes sheep fight their way through snow deeper than their backs. The leading one rears on hind legs, extends front feet, leaps upward and forward, throwing himself with a lunge upon the snow. At an enormous cost of energy they slowly advance.