The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-05-20
American wild sheep.

American Wild Sheep.
The earliest mention that I have BEEN
able to find Of the wild sheep in Ameri-
ca Is by Father Picolo, q Catholic mis-
sionary at Monterey, in the year 1897,
who, after describing it, oddly enough,
Is ga kind of deer with sheep-like
head. about as large as . calf one or
two years DID," naturally hurries on to
remark: 81 have eaten of these beasts;
their flesh is tender and delicious" Mac
kenzie, in his northern travels, heard
the species spoken of by the Indians as
"white buffaloes.'' And Lewis and
Clark tell us that, in q time Of great
scarcity on the head-waters of the Mis-
souri, they saw plenty of wild sheep, but
they were too shy to be shot
A few of the more energetic OF the
Pah Ute Indians hunt the wild sheep
every season among the more accessible
of the California Alps, in the neighbor-
hood of passes, where, from having
been pursued, they have at length be-
come extremely wary; but in the rugged
wilderness of peaks and canyons, where
the fOaming tributaries of the San
Joaquin and Kings Rivers take their
rise, they fear no hunter save the wolf,
and are more guileless and approacha-
bic than their tame kindred.
I have been greatly interested in
studying their habits during the last ten
years, while engaged in the work of ex-
ploring those high regions where they
delight to roam. In the months of
November and December, and probably
during considerable portion of mid
winter, they all flock together, male and
female, old and young. once found a
complete band of this kind numbering
upward of fifty, which, ON being alarmed,
went bounding away across jagged
lava-bed at admirable speed, led by a
majestic old ram, with the lambs safe in
the middle of the flock.
In spring and summer, the full grown
rams form separate bands of from three
to twenty, and are usually found feeding
along the edges of glacier meadows, or
resting along the castle-like crags OF
the high SUBMITS; and whether quietly
feeding, or scaling the wild cliffs for
pleasure, their noble forms, and the
power and beauty of their movements,
never fail to strike the beholder with
admiration.
Their, resting place seems to be chosen
with reference to sunshine and wide
outlook, and most of all to safety from
the attacks of wolves. Their feeding
grounds are among the most beautiful
of the wild gardens, bright with daisies,
and gentians, and mats of purple bryan
thus, lying hidden away on rocky head
lands and canon sides, where sunshine
is abundant, or down in shady glacier
valleys, along the banks of streams and
lakes, where the plushy sod is greenest.
Here they feed all summer, the happy
wanderers, perhaps relishing the beauty
as well as the taste of the lovely flora on
which they feed, however slow tame
men may be to guess their capacity be-
yond grass.
When winter storms set in, loading
their highland pastures with snow, then,
like the birds, they gather and 60 to
warmer climates, usually descending the
eastern flank of the range to the rough,
volcanic table-lands and treeless ranges
of the Great Basin adjacent to the Sierra.
They never make haste, however, and
seem to have no dread of storms, many
of the strongest only going down leisure
ly to bare, wind-swept ridges, to feed on
bushes and dry bunch-grass, and then
returning up into the snow. Once Twas
snow-bonnd on Mount Shasta for three
DAYS, little below the timber-line. 1t
was q dark and stormy time, well calcu-
lated to test the skill and endurance of
mountaineers. The snow-laden gale
drove on night and day in Kissing,
binding floods, and when at length it be-
gan to abate, l found that band of
wild sheep had weathered the storm in
the lee of a clump of dwarf pines few
yards above my storm-nest, where the
snow was eight or ten feet deep. I was
warm, back of a rock, with blankets,
bread, and fire. My brave companions
Law in the snow, without food, and with
only the partial shelter of the short trees,
vet made no sign of suffering or faint
heartedness.
In the months of May and June they
bring forth their young, in the most SOL
itary and inaccessible crags, far above
the nesting-rocks of the eagle. 1 have
frequently come upon the beds of the
ewes and lambs at an elevation of from
twelve to thirteen thousand feet above
yea-level. These beds are simply oval
shaped hollows, paved out among loose,
disintegrating rock-chips and sand, upon
some sunny spot commanding a good
outlook, and partially sheltered from the
winds that sweep those lofty peaks al
most without intermission. Such is the
cradle of the little mountaineer, aloft in
the very sky; rocked in storms, curtained
in clouds, sleeping in thin, icy air; but.
wrapped in his hairy coat, and nourished
by strong, warm mother, defended
from the talons of the eagle and teeth OF
the sly coyote, the bonnie lamb grows
apace. He soon learns to nibble the
tufted rock-grasses and leaves of the
white spirea; his horns begin to shoot,
and before summer is done he is strong
and agile, and goes forth with the flock,
watched by the same divine love that
tends the more helpless human lamb in
its warm cradle by the fireside.-John
Muir, in Scribner's Monthly.