Chapter VIII: Part 8

"The big ram came down from the side of the mountain, and, to pass over to the other mountain, he had to cross the valley. There were a number of knolls or ridges in this valley, where the snow was not so deep as in the hollows. The ram broke a trail to a knoll, and stopped and looked back, and pretty soon I saw the rest of the sheep coming along. They followed his trail and passed him while he was standing there looking back, always looking up at the mountain. While he stood on this knoll where the snow was not deep--for it had blown off--and the other sheep had passed him, one of them took the lead to the next knoll, breaking the trail, but here the snow was not so deep as that the ram had come through. No sooner had the sheep got to this knoll than the old ram started. He took the trail the others had made, and joined them at the next knoll, and then plunging in, went on ahead and broke a fresh trail to the next rise of ground. The ram did most of the trail-breaking, but sometimes one of the others went ahead; there was always one in the rear, on guard, as it were, until they had crossed the valley to a steep ridge on the next mountain. As they went, they stopped every little while and stood for some time looking back.

"Knowing the habits of the animal, I felt sure that something had driven them off the mountain. They looked back as if to see whether anything was following, or perhaps to look again at what had frightened them. I thought it was a mountain lion. Soon afterward I took my snowshoes and went up that way and found the track of a mountain lion. From the size of the track it seemed as if the animal must have been enormous. On soft snow, though, tracks spread and look big, and besides that, these cats commonly spread out their toes. There was no mistake about its being a mountain lion, for I could see where the tail had struck the soft snow and made holes in it.

"Mountain lions were around there a good deal, and E. De Long, who had a cabin a little further up in the valley, told me that three times in his experience of hunting up there he had come on a place where a mountain lion had just killed a sheep. In each case he found the sheep in nearly the same place, and in each case the sheep was freshly killed, and he dressed it and took it home.

"This seemed to be a favorite place for the lions to kill sheep. They are great hands to kill sheep in about the same place. Far up on the Boulder--way up near the head--Col. Pickett and I found nineteen or twenty skulls of sheep by one rock. There was a wonderful lot of them. They had been killed at various times, and in a place where they never could have been killed by snowslides. It was under a very high rock, fifteen feet perpendicular on one side, and in the valley a game trail passed close under this side. On the other side the rock was not so high, but sloped off to the side of the hill. A lion could easily lie there without being seen, but could himself see both ways. The game trail was so close that he could jump right down on to it. The number of skulls that we saw here was so remarkable that Col. Pickett and I counted them; there were more than eighteen.

"The skulls were most of them old--killed a good while before. None of them had the shells of the horns. They were old skulls, and the oldest were almost in fragments, very much weathered. It was the accumulation of a number of years, probably ten or fifteen. To my mind it showed clearly that this was a favorite place for lions to lie for mountain sheep. I have known of something similar to that in Cinnabar Basin, where I have seen a number of skulls scattered along the gulch. There was a heavy trail there which led up to a valley where there is a pass by which we used to wind down to the Yellowstone and Tom Miner Creek and Trapper Creek.

"Lions are quite bad along the Yellowstone here, and sometimes in a hard winter they seem to be driven out of the mountains, and a considerable number have been killed on Gardiner River and Reese Creek.

"If mountain lions are after the sheep, the sheep leave the mountain they are on and go to another; they will not stay there, and will not return until something drives them back."

SOME WAYS OF THE SHEEP.

Mr. Hofer said:

"In old times it was sometimes possible to get a 'stand' on sheep, and, in my opinion, sheep often, even to-day, are the least suspicious of all the mountain animals. A mountain sheep always seems to fear the thing that he sees under him. If a man goes above him he does not seem to know what to do. I could never understand why, when one is above him, he stands and looks. I have sometimes been riding around in the mountains, and have come on sheep right below me. I have often thrown stones at them, and sometimes it was quite a while before I could get them to start. Finally, however, they would run off. They acted as if they were dazed.

"On the other hand, when I carried the mail down in San Juan county, Colorado, in the winter of 1875-'76, going across from Animas Forks by way of the Grizzly Pass to Tellurium Fork, I was the only person in that section of the country all through the winter, and yet, although the sheep saw only me, and saw me every day, they always acted wild. Sometimes a ram would see me and stand and look for a long time, and then presently all along the mountain side I would see sheep running as if they were alarmed. On the other hand, if I met any of them on top of the mountain, they scarcely ever ran, they just stood and looked at me.

"Once, when on a hunting trip, I had my horses all picketed in sight, just above the basin where we were camped. The boy that had the care of the horses had been up to change the picketed animals, and when he came in he said: 'There's a sheep up there close by the horses. He saw me and was not afraid.' We went out of the tent and presently I could see the sheep, a small one about four years old. We went up toward it, and I saw the sheep moving about. It went out to a little flat place on the slide rock, where the slide rock had pushed out a little further, making a little low butte, or flat-topped table; it was loose rock, with snow. Here the sheep lay down.

"I went around to station my man where he could get a rest for his rifle, and when I had done this, I went around above to make the sheep get up to drive him out, so that the man could shoot him. After I got well up the gulch, above him, the sheep could see me plainly, and I could see his eyes. I hesitated about making him get up, thinking perhaps it was somebody's tame sheep, but we were the first ones up there that spring, and of course it was not a tame sheep. If we had not been out of meat I would not have disturbed the animal. I walked toward it to make it get up, but it would not, and still lay there. When I was within thirty feet of it I took up a stone and threw it, and called at him. The sheep stood up and looked at me. I said, 'Go on, now,' and he started in the direction I wished him to take. When he came in sight, the man fired two or three shots at him, but did not hurt him, and the sheep again lay down in sight of camp. Afterward I fired at him about 300 yards up the side of the mountain, but I did not touch him. However, he was disturbed by the shooting, and moved away.

"It is often difficult to find a reason for the way sheep act. It is possible that this young ram, which was in the Sunlight Mining District, had seen many miners, and that they had not disturbed him, and that so he had lost his fear of man. He was not at all afraid of horses, perhaps because he was accustomed to seeing miners' horses; or he may have taken them for elk. I do not see why our wind did not alarm him. At all events, for some reason, this one showed no fear.

"Along the Gardiner River, inside the northern boundary of the Yellowstone Park, there are always a number of sheep in winter, and they become very tame, having learned by experience that people passing to and fro will not injure them. Men driving up the road from Mammoth Hot Springs to Gardiner, constantly see these sheep, which manifest the utmost indifference to those who are passing them. Sometimes they stand close enough to the road for a driver to reach them with his whip. One winter the surgeon at the post, driving along, came upon a sheep standing in the road, and as it did not move, he had to stop his team for it. He did not dare to drive his horse close up to it. Finally the ram jumped out to one side of the road, and the surgeon drove on. He said he could have touched it with his whip."

One winter when Mr. Hofer made an extended snowshoe trip through the Park, he passed very close to sheep. It appeared to him that they fear man less along the wagon roads than when he is out on the benches and in the mountains. They seem to care little for man, but if a mountain lion appears in the neighborhood, the sheep are no longer seen. Just where they go is uncertain, but it is believed that they cross the Yellowstone River by swimming.

In winter, and especially late in the winter, sheep frequent southern and southwestern exposures, and spend much of their time there. I have seen places on the St. Marys Lake, in northern Montana, where there were cartloads of droppings, apparently the accumulation of many years, and have seen the same thing in the cliffs along the Yellowstone River. On the rocks here there were many beds among the cliffs and ledges. Often such beds are behind a rock, not a high one, but one that the sheep could look over. In places such as this the animals are very difficult to detect.

Although the wild sheep was formerly, to a considerable extent, an inhabitant of the western edge of the prairies of the high dry plains, it is so no longer. The settling of the country has made this impossible, but long before its permanent occupancy the frequent passage through it by hunters had resulted in the destruction of the sheep or had driven it more or less permanently to those heights where, in times of danger, it had always sought refuge.

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.

During the spring, summer, and early fall the females and their young keep together in small bands in the mountains, well up, close under what is called the "rim rock," or the "reefs," where the grass is sweet and tender, the going good, and where a refuge is within easy reach. While hunting in such places in September and October, when the first snows are falling, one is likely to find the trail of a band of sheep close up beneath the rock. If the mountain is one long inhabited by sheep, they have made a well-worn trail on the hillside, and the little band, while traveling along this in a general way, scatters out on both sides feeding on the grass heads that project above the snow, and often with their noses pushing the light snow away to get at the grass beneath. I have never seen them do this, nor have I seen them paw to get at the grass, but the marks in the snow where they have fed showed clearly that the snow was pushed aside by the muzzle.

Like most other animals, wild and tame, sheep are very local in their habits, and one little band will occupy the same basin in the mountains all summer long, going to water by the same trail, feeding in the same meadows and along the same hillsides, occupying the same beds stamped out in the rough slide rock, or on the great rock masses which have fallen down from the cliff above. Even if frightened from their chosen home by the passage of a party of travelers, they will go no further than to the tops of the rocks, and as soon as the cause of alarm is removed will return once more to the valley.

I saw a striking instance of this some years ago, when, with a Geological Survey party, I visited a little basin on the head of one of the forks of Stinking Water in Wyoming, where a few families of sheep had their home.

Our appearance alarmed the sheep, which ran a little way up the face of the cliff, and then, stopping occasionally to look, clambered along more deliberately. When we reached the head of the basin we found that there was no way down on the other side, and that we must go back as we had come. The afternoon was well advanced and the pack train started back and camped only a mile or two down the valley, while I stopped among some great rocks to watch the movements of the sheep. Though at first not easy to see, the animals' presence was evident by their calling, and at length several were detected almost at the top of the cliff, but already making their way back into the valley.

I was much interested in watching a ewe, which was coming down a steep slope of slide rock. There was apparently no trail, or if there was one, she did not use it, but picked her way down to the head of the slope of slide rock, stood there for a few moments, and then, after bleating once or twice, sprang well out into the air and alighted on the slide rock, it seemed to me, twenty-five feet below where she had been. A little cloud of dust arose and she appeared to be buried to her knees in the slide rock. I could not see how it was possible for her to have made this jump without breaking her slender legs, yet she repeated it again and again, until she had come down about to my level and had passed out of sight. Nor was this ewe the only one that was coming down. From a number of points on the precipice round about I could hear rocks rolling and sheep calling, and before very long eight or ten ewes and four or five lambs had come together in the little basin, and presently marched almost straight up to where I lay hid. There was meat in the camp, and so no reason for shooting at these innocents. Later when I returned to camp, one of the packers informed me that for an hour or two before a yearling ram had been feeding in the meadow with the pack animals, close to the camp.

The sheep now commonly shows himself to be the keenest and wariest of North American big game. Yet we may readily credit the stories told us by older men of his former simplicity and innocence, since even to-day we sometimes see these characteristics displayed. I remember riding up a narrow valley walled in on both sides by vertical cliffs and at its head by a rock wall which was partly broken down, and through which we hoped to find a way into the next valley to the northward. As we rode along, a mile or more from the cliff at the valley's head, I saw one or two sheep passing over it, and a few minutes later was electrified by hearing my companion say: "Oh, look at the sheep! Look at the sheep! Look at the sheep!" And there, charging down the valley directly toward us, came a bunch of thirty or forty sheep in a close body, running as if something very terrifying were close behind them, and paying not the slightest attention to the two horsemen before them. I rolled off my horse and loaded my gun. The sheep came within twenty-five or thirty steps and a little to one side, and passed us like the wind, but they left behind one of their number, which kept us in fresh meat for several days thereafter.

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.

Of Dall's sheep, Mr. Stone declares that it is rapidly growing scarcer, and this statement is based not only on his own observation, but on reports made to him by the Indians. Mr. Stone describes it as possessing wonderful agility, endurance, and vitality, and gives many examples of their ability to get about among most difficult rocks when wounded. He adds: "From my experience with these animals, I believe they seek quite as rugged a country in which to make their homes as does the Rocky Mountain goat. They brave higher latitudes and live in regions in every way more barren and forbidding." He reports the females with their lambs as generally keeping to the high table lands far back in the mountains. Among the specimens which he recently collected, broken jaw bones reunited were so frequent among the females killed as to excite comment. Notwithstanding Mr. Stone's gloomy view of the future of this species, we may hope that the enforcement of the game laws in Alaska will long preserve this beautiful animal.

Our knowledge of the habits of the Lower California sheep inhabiting the San Pedro Martir Mountains has been slight. Mr. Gould's admirable account of a hunting trip for them--"To the Gulf of Cortez," published in a preceding volume of the Club's book--will be remembered, and the curious fact stated by his Indian guide that the sheep break holes in the hard, prickly rinds of the venaga cactus with their horns, and then eat out the inside.

Recently, however, a series of thirteen specimens collected by Edmund Heller were received by Dr. D.G. Elliot, and described, as already stated, and he gives from Mr. Heller's note-book the following notes on their habits:

"Common about the cliffs, coming down occasionally to the water holes in the valley. Most of the sheep observed were either solitary or in small bands of three to a dozen. Only one adult ram was seen, all the others, about thirty, being either ewes or lambs. The largest bunch seen consisted of eleven, mostly ewes and a few young rams." The sheep, as a rule, inhabit the middle line of cliffs where they are safe from attack above and can watch the valley below for danger. Here about the middle line of cliffs they were observed, and the greater number of tracks and dust wallows, where they spend much of their time, were seen. A few were seen on the level stretches of the mesas, and a considerable number of tracks, but these were made by those traveling from one line of cliffs to another.

"They are constantly on guard, and very little of their time is given to browsing. Their usual method is to feed about some high cliffs or rocks, taking an occasional mouthful of brush, and then suddenly throwing up the head and gazing and listening for a long time before again taking food. They are not alarmed by scent, like deer or antelope, the direction of the wind apparently making no difference in hunting them. A small bunch of six were observed for a considerable time feeding. Their method seemed to be much the same as individuals, except that when danger was suspected by any member, he would give a few quick leaps, and all the flock would scamper to some high rock and face about in various directions, no two looking the same way. These maneuvers were often performed, perhaps once every fifteen minutes.

"Their chief enemy is the mountain lion, which hunts them on the cliffs, apparently never about watering places. Lion tracks were not rare about the sheep runs. They are extremely wary about coming down for water, and take every precaution. Before leaving the cliffs to cross the valley to water they usually select some high ridge and descend along this, gazing constantly at the spring, usually halting ten or more minutes on every prominent rocky point. When within a hundred yards or less of the water, a long careful search is made, and a great deal of ear-work performed, the head being turned first to one side and then to the other. When they do at last satisfy themselves, they make a bolt and drink quickly, stopping occasionally to listen and look for danger.

"If, however, they should be surprised at the water they do not flee at once, but gaze for some time at the intruder, and then go a short way and take another look, and so on until at last they break into a steady run for the cliffs. At least thirty sheep were observed at the water, and none came before 9:30 A.M. or later than 2:30 P.M., most coming down between 12:00 M. and 1:00 P.M. This habit has probably been established to avoid lions, which are seldom about during the hottest part of the day. A few ewes were seen with two lambs, but the greater number had only one. Most of the young appeared about two months old. Their usual gait was a short gallop, seldom a walk or trot."

The great curving horns of the wild sheep have always exercised more or less influence on people's imagination, and have given rise to various fables. These horns are large in proportion to the animal, and so peculiar that it has seemed necessary to account for them on the theory that they had some marvelous purpose. The familiar tale that the horns of the males were used as cushions on which the animal alighted when leaping down from great heights is old. A more modern hypothesis which promises to be much shorter lived is that advanced a year or two ago by Mr. Geo. Wherry, of Cambridge, England, who suggested that "The form of the horn and position of the ear enables the wild sheep to determine the direction of sound when there is a mist or fog, the horn acting like an admiralty megaphone when used as an ear trumpet, or like the topophone (double ear trumpet, the bells of which turn opposite ways) used for a fog-bound ship on British-American vessels to determine the direction of sound signals."

It is, of course, well understood, and, on the publication of Mr. Wherry's hypothesis, was at once suggested, that there are many species of wild sheep, and that the spiral of the horn of each species is a different one. Moreover, within each species there are of course different ages, and the spiral may differ with age and also at the same age to some extent with the individual. In some cases, the ear perhaps lies at the apex of a cone formed by the horn, but in others it does not lie there. Moreover this hypothesis, like the other and older one, in which the horns were said to act as the jumping cushion, takes no account of the females and young, which in mists, fogs, and at other times, need protection quite as much as the adult males. The old males with large and perfect horns have to a large extent fulfilled the function of their lives--reproduction--and their place is shortly to be taken by younger animals growing up. Moreover they have reached the full measure of strength and agility, and through years of experience have come to a full knowledge of the many dangers to which their race is exposed. It would seem extraordinary that nature should have cared so well for them, and should have left the more defenseless females and young unprotected from the dangers likely to come to them from enemies which may make sounds in a fog.

The old males with large and perfect horns have come to their full fighting powers, and do fight fiercely at certain seasons of the year. And it is believed by many people that the great development of horns among the mountain sheep is merely a secondary sexual character analogous to the antlers of the deer or the spurs of the cock.

Most people who have hunted sheep much will believe that this species depends for its safety chiefly on its nose and its eyes. And if the observations of hunters in general could be gathered and collated, they would probably agree that the female sheep are rather quicker to notice danger than the males, though both are quick enough.

PROTECTION.

It is gratifying to note that the rapid disappearance of the mountain sheep has made some impression on legislators in certain States where it is native. Some of these have laws absolutely forbidding the killing of mountain sheep; and while in certain places in all of such States and Territories this law is perhaps lightly regarded, and not generally observed, still, on the whole, its effect must be good, and we may hope that gradually it will find general observance. The mountain sheep is so superb an animal that it should be a matter of pride with every State which has a stock of sheep within its borders to preserve that stock most scrupulously. It is said that in Colorado, where sheep have long been protected, they are noticeably increasing, and growing tamer. I have been told of one stock and mining camp, near Silver Plume, where there is a bunch of sheep absolutely protected by public sentiment, in which the miners, and in fact the whole community, take great pride and delight.

It is fitting that on the statute books the mountain sheep should have better protection than most species of our large game, since there is no other species now existing in any numbers which is more exposed to danger of extinction. Destroyed on its old ranges, it is found now only in the roughest mountains, the bad lands, and the desert, and it is sufficiently desirable as a trophy to be ardently pursued wherever found.

Several States have been wise enough absolutely to protect sheep; these are North Dakota, California, Arizona, Montana, Colorado (until 1907), Utah, New Mexico (until March 1, 1905), and Texas (until July, 1908). Three other States, South Dakota, Wyoming and Idaho, permit one mountain sheep to be killed by the hunter during the open season of each year. Oregon, which has a long season, from July 15 to November 1, puts no limit on the number to be killed, while in Nevada there appears to be no protection for the species.

If these protective laws were enforced, sheep would increase, and once more become delightful objects of the landscape, as they have in portions of Colorado and in the National Park, where, as already stated, they are so tame during certain seasons of the year that they will hardly get out of the way. On the other hand, in many localities covered by excellent laws, there are no means of enforcing them. Montana, which perhaps has as many sheep as any State in the Union, does not, and perhaps cannot, enforce her law, the sheep living in sections distant from the localities where game wardens are found, and so difficult to watch. In some cases where forest rangers are appointed game wardens, they are without funds for the transportation of themselves and prisoners over the one hundred or two hundred miles between the place of arrest and the nearest Justice of the Peace, and cannot themselves be expected to pay these expenses. In the summer of 1903 sheep were killed in violation of law in the mountains of Montana, and also in the bad lands of the Missouri River.

On the other hand, in Colorado there are many places where the law protecting the sheep is absolutely observed. Public opinion supports the law, and those disposed to violate it dare not do so for fear of the law. Near Silver Plume, already mentioned, a drive to see the wild sheep come down to water is one of the regular sights offered to visitors, and while there may be localities where sheep are killed in violation of the law in Colorado, it is certain that there are many where the law is respected.

There are still a few places where sheep may be found to-day, living somewhat as they used to live before the white men came into the western country. Such places are the extremely rough bad lands of the Missouri River, between the Little Rocky Mountains and the mouth of Milk River, where, on account of the absence of water on the upper prairie and the small areas of the bottoms of the Missouri River, there are as yet few settlements. The bad lands are high and rough, scarcely to be traversed except by a man on foot, and in their fastnesses the sheep--protected formally by State law, but actually by the rugged country--are still holding their own. They come down to the river at night to water, and returning spend the day feeding on the uplands of the prairie, and resting in beds pawed out of the dry earth of the washed bad lands, just as their ancestors did.

In old times this country abounded in buffalo, elk, deer of two species, sheep, and antelope, and if set aside as a State park by Montana, it would offer an admirable game refuge, and one still stocked with all its old-time animals, except the elk and the buffalo.

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RANGE.

The present range of the different forms of mountain sheep extends from Alaska and from the Pacific Ocean east to the Rocky Mountains--with a tongue extending down the Missouri River as far as the Little Missouri--south to Sonora and Lower California. The various forms from north to south appear to be Dall's sheep, the saddleback sheep, Stone's sheep, the common bighorn, with the Missouri River variety, existing to the east, in the bad lands, and with Nelson's, the Mexican and the Lower California sheep running southward into Mexico.

Among the experienced hunters of both forms of Dall's sheep are Messrs. Dali DeWeese, of Colorado, and A.J. Stone, Collector of Arctic Mammals for the American Museum of Natural History. Mr. Stone gives two distinct ranges for this sheep, (1) the Alaska Mountains and Kenai Peninsula, and (2) the entire stretch of the Rocky Mountains north of latitude 60 degrees to near the Arctic coast just at the McKenzie, reaching thence west to the headwaters of the Noatak and Kowak rivers that flow into Kotzebue Sound.

Stone's sheep, which was described by Dr. Allen in 1897, came from the head of the Stickine River, and two years after its description Dr. J.A. Allen quotes Mr. A.J. Stone, the collector, as saying: "I traced the _Ovis stonei_, or black sheep, throughout the mountainous country of the headwaters of the Stickine, and south to the headwaters of the Nass, but could find no reliable information of their occurrence further south in this longitude. They are found throughout the Cassiar Mountains, which extend north to 61 degrees north latitude and west to 134 degrees west longitude. How much further west they may be found I have been unable to determine. Nor could I ascertain whether their range extends from the Cassiar Mountains into the Rocky Mountains to the north of Francis and Liard River. But the best information obtained led me to believe that it does not. They are found in the Rocky Mountains to the south as far as the headwaters of the Nelson and Peace rivers in latitude 56 degrees, but I proved conclusively that in the main range of the Rocky Mountains very few of them are found north of the Liard River. Where this river sweeps south through the Rocky Mountains to Hell's Gate, a few of these animals are founds as far north as Beaver River, a tributary of the Liard. None, however, are found north of this, and I am thoroughly convinced that this is the only place where these animals may be found north of the Liard River.

"I find that in the Cassiar Mountains and in the Rocky Mountains they everywhere range above timber line, as they do in the mountains of Stickine, the Cheonees, and the Etsezas.

"Directly to the north of the Beaver River, and north of the Liard River below the confluence of the Beaver, we first meet with _Ovis dalli_."

A Stony Indian once told me that in his country--the main range of the Rocky Mountains--there were two sorts of sheep, one small, dark in color, and with slender horns, which are seldom broken, and another sort larger and pale in color, with heavy, thick horns that are often broken at the point. He went on to say that these small black sheep are all found north of Bow River, Alberta, and that on the south side of Bow River the big sheep only occur. The country referred to all lies on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. The hunting ground of the Stonies runs as far north as Peace River, and it is hardly to be doubted that they know Stone's sheep. The Brewster Bros., of Banff, Alberta, inform me that Stone's sheep is found on the head of Peace River.

A dozen or fifteen years ago one of the greatest sheep ranges that was at all accessible was in the mountains at the head of the Ashnola River, in British Columbia, and on the head of the Methow, which rises in the same mountains and flows south into Washington. This is a country very rough and without roads, only to be traversed with a pack train.

Mr. Lew Wilmot writes me that there are still quite a number of sheep ranging from Mt. Chapacca, up through the Ashnola, and on the headwaters of the Methow. Indeed, it is thought by some that sheep are more numerous there now than they were a few years ago. In Dyche's "Campfires of a Naturalist" a record is given of sheep in the Palmer Lake region, at the east base of the Cascade range in Washington.

The Rev. John McDougall, of Morley, Alberta, wrote me in 1899, in answer to inquiries as to the mountain sheep inhabiting the country ranged over by the Stony Indians, "that it is the opinion of these Indians that the sheep which frequent the mountains from Montana northward as far as our Indians hunt, are all of one kind, but that in localities they differ in size, and somewhat in color.

"They say that from the 49th parallel to the headwaters of the Saskatchewan River, sheep are larger than those in the Selkirks and coast ranges; and also that as they go north of the Saskatchewan the sheep become smaller. As to color, they say that the more southerly and western sheep are the lighter; and that as you pass north the sheep are darker in color. These Stonies report mountain sheep as still to be found in all of the mountain country they roam in. Their hunting ground is about 400 miles long by 150 broad, and is principally confined to the Rocky Mountain range."

In an effort to establish something of the range of the mountain sheep, during the very last years of the nineteenth century, I communicated with a large number of gentlemen who were either resident in, or travelers through, portions of the West now or formerly occupied by the mountain sheep, and the results of these inquiries I give below:

Prof. L.V. Pirsson, of Yale University, who has spent a number of years in studying the geology of various portions of the northern Rocky Mountains, wrote me with considerable fullness in 1896 concerning the game situation in some of the front ranges of the Rockies, where sheep were formerly very abundant. In the Crazy Mountains he says he saw no sheep, and that while it was possible they might be there, they must certainly be rare. In 1880 there were many sheep there. In the Castle Mountains none were seen, nor reported, nor any traces seen. The same is true of the Little Belt, Highwood, and Judith Mountains. He understood that sheep were still present in the bad lands; immediately about the mountains and east of them the country was too well settled for any game to live. Earlier, however, in the summer of 1890, passing through the Snowy Mountains, which lie north of the National Park, sheep were seen on two occasions; a band of ten ewes and lambs on Sheep Mountain, and a band of seven rams on the head of the stream known as the Buffalo Fork of the Lamar River. In 1893 an old ram was killed on Black Butte, at the extreme eastern end of the Judith Mountains, near Cone Butte, and it is quite possible that this animal had strayed out of the bad lands on the lower Musselshell, or on the Missouri. Even at that time there were said to be no sheep on the Little Rockies, Bearpaws, or Sweetgrass Hills.

All the ranges spoken of were formerly great sheep ranges, and on all of them, many years ago, I saw sheep in considerable numbers.

There are a very few sheep in the Wolf Mountains of Montana.

There are still mountain sheep among the rough bad lands on both sides of the Missouri River, between the mouth of the Musselshell and the mouth of Big Dry. It is hard to estimate the number of these sheep, but there must be many hundreds of them, and perhaps thousands. As recently as August, 1900, Mr. S.C. Leady, a ranchman in this region, advised me that he counted in one bunch, coming to water, forty-nine sheep.

Mr. Leady further advised me that in his country, owing to the sparse settlement, the game laws are not at all regarded, and sheep are hunted at all times of the year. The settlers themselves advocate the protection of the game, but there is really no one to enforce the laws. Recent advices from this country show that the conditions there are now somewhat improved.

It is probable that in suitable localities in the Missouri River bad lands sheep are still found in some numbers all the way from the mouth of the Little Missouri to the mouth of the Judith River.

Mr. O.C. Graetz, now, or recently, of Kipp, Montana, advised me, through my friend, J.B. Monroe, that in 1894, in the Big Horn Mountains, Wyo., on the head of the Little Horn River, in the rough and rolling country he saw a band of eleven sheep. The same man tells me that also in 1894, in Sweetwater county, in Wyoming, near the Sweetwater River, south of South Pass, on a mountain known as Oregon Butte, he twice saw two sheep. The country was rolling and high, with scattering timber, but not much of it. In this country, and at that time, the sheep were not much hunted.

Mr. Elwood Hofer, one of the best known guides of the West, whose home is in Gardiner, Park county, Mont., has very kindly furnished me with information about the sheep on the borders of the Yellowstone National Park. Writing in May, 1898, he says: "At this time sheep are not numerous anywhere in this country, compared with what they were before the railroad (Northern Pacific Railroad) was built in 1881. In summer they are found in small bands all through the mountains, in and about the National Park. I found them all along the divide, and out on the spurs, between the Yellowstone and Stinking Water rivers, and on down between the Yellowstone and Snake rivers, on one side, and the south fork of Stinking Water River and the Wind River on the east. I found sheep at the extreme headwaters of the Yellowstone, and of the Wind River, and the Buffalo Fork of Snake River. There are sheep in the Tetons, Gallatin-Madison range, and even on Mount Holmes. I have seen them around Electric Peak, and so on north, along the west side of the Yellowstone as far as the Bozeman Pass; but not lately, for I have not been in those mountains for a number of years. All along the range from the north side of the Park to within sight of Livingston there are a few sheep.

"On the Stinking Water, where I used to see bands of fifteen to twenty sheep, now we only see from three to five. Of late years I have seen very few large rams, and those only in the Park. Last summer Mr. Archibald Rogers saw a large ram at the headwaters of Eagle Creek, very close to the Park. In winter there are usually a few large rams in the Gardiner Canyon. I hear that there are a few sheep out toward Bozeman, on Mt. Blackmore, and the mountains near there.

"I believe that some of the reasons for the scarcity of mountain sheep in this country are these: First, the settlement of the plains country close to the mountains, prevents their going to their winter ranges, and so starves them; secondly, the same cause keeps them in the mountains, where the mountain lions can get at them; and thirdly, the scab has killed a good many. I do not think that the rifle has had much to do with destroying the sheep."

Sheep were formerly exceedingly abundant in all the bad lands along the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, and in the rough, broken country from Powder River west to the Big Horn. The Little Missouri country was a good sheep range, and also the broken country about Fort Laramie. In the Black Hills of Dakota they were formerly abundant, and also along the North Platte River, near the canons of the Platte, in the Caspar Mountain, and in all the rough country down nearly to the forks of the Platte.

The easternmost locality which I have for the bighorn is the Birdwood Creek in Nebraska. This lies just north of O'Fallon Station on the Union Pacific Railroad and flows nearly due south into the North Platte River. It is in the northwestern corner of Lincoln county, Nebraska, just west of the meridian of 101 degrees. Here, in 1877, the late Major Frank North, well known to all men familiar with the West between the years 1860 and 1880, saw, but did not kill, a male mountain sheep. The animal was only 100 yards from him, was plainly seen and certainly recognized. Major North had no gun, and thought of killing the sheep with his revolver, but his brother, Luther H. North, who was armed with a rifle, was not far from him, and Major North dropped down out of sight and motioned his brother to come to him, so that he might kill it. By the time Luther had come up, the sheep had walked over a ridge and was not seen again, but there is no doubt as to its identification. It had probably come from Court House Rock in Scott's Bluff county, Nebraska, where there were still a few sheep as recently as twenty-five years ago.

These animals were also more or less abundant along the Little Missouri River as late as the late '80's, and perhaps still later. This had always been a favorite range for them, and in 1874 they were noticed and reported on by Government expeditions which passed through the country, and the hunters and trappers who about that time plied their trade along that river found them abundant. Mr. Roosevelt has written much of hunting them on that stream.

The low bluffs of the Yellowstone River--in the days when that was a hostile Indian country, and only the hunter who was particularly reckless and daring ventured into it--were a favorite feeding ground for sheep. They were reported very numerous by the first expeditions that went up the river, and a few have been killed there within five or six years, although the valley is given over to farming and the upper prairie is covered with cattle. This used to be one of the greatest sheep ranges in all the West; the wide flats of the river bottom, the higher table lands above, and the worn bad lands between, furnishing ideal sheep ground. The last killed there, so far as I know, were a ram and two ewes, which were taken about forty miles below Rosebud Station, on the river, in 1897 or 1898.

Of Wyoming, Mr. Wm. Wells writes: "I have only been up here in northwestern Wyoming for a year, but from what I have seen, sheep are holding their own fairly well, and may be increasing in places. In 1897, Mr. H.D. Shelden, of Detroit, Mich., and myself were hunting sheep just west of the headwaters of Hobacks River. There was a sort of knife-edge ridge running about fifteen miles north and south, the summit of which was about 2,000 feet above a bench or table-land. The ridge was well watered, and in some places the timber ran nearly up to the top of the ridge. On this ridge there were about 100 sheep, divided into three bands. Each band seemed to make its home in a cup-like hollow on the east side of the ridge, about 500 feet below the crest, but the members of the different bands seemed to visit back and forth, as the numbers were not always the same.

"We could take our horses up into either one of the three hollows, and some of the sheep were so tame that we have several times been within fifty yards in plain sight, and had the sheep pay very little attention to us. In one instance two ewes and lambs went on ahead of us at a walk for several hundred yards, often stopping to look back; and in another a sheep, after looking at us, two horses and two dogs, across a canyon 200 yards wide, pawed a bed in the slide rock and lay down. In another case I drove about thirty head of ewes and lambs to within thirty-five yards of Mr. Shelden, and when he rose up in plain sight, they stood and looked at him. When he saw that there was no ram there, he yelled at them, upon which they ran off about 400 yards, and then stood and looked at us.

"I do not think that these sheep had been hunted, until this time, for several years. As nearly as I could tell, they ranged winter and summer on nearly the same ground. At the top of the range, facing the east, were overhanging ledges of rock, and under these the dung was two feet or more deep.

"Either during the winter or early spring the sheep had been down in the timber on the east side of the ridge, as I found the remains of several, in the winter coat, that had been killed by cougars."