old that its favorite
feeding grounds are bald hills and elevated plateaus, and although when
pursued and wounded it takes to precipitous cliffs, and perhaps even to
tall mountain peaks, the land of its choice appears to be not rough
rocks, but rather the level or rolling upland.

The sheep formerly was a gentle, unsuspicious animal, curious and
confiding rather than shy; now it is noted in many regions for its
alertness, wariness, and ability to take care of itself.

Richardson, in his "Fauni-Boreali Americana," says: "Mr. Drummond
informs me that in the retired part of the mountains, where hunters had
seldom penetrated, he found no difficulty in approaching the Rocky
Mountain sheep, which there exhibited the simplicity of character so
remarkable in the domestic species; but that where they had been often
fired at they were exceedingly wild, alarmed their companions on the
approach of danger by a hissing noise, and scaled the rocks with a speed
and agility that baffled pursuit." The mountain men of early days tell
precisely the same thing of the sheep. Fifty or sixty years ago they
were regarded as the gentlest and most unsuspicious animal of all the
prairie, excepting, of course, the buffalo. They did not understand that
the sound of a gun meant danger, and, when shot at, often merely jumped
about and stared, acting much as in later times the elk and the mule
deer acted.

We may take it for granted that, before the coming of the white man, the
mountain sheep ranged over a very large portion of western America, from
the Arctic Ocean down into Mexico. Wherever the country was adapted to
them, there they were found. Absence of suitable food, and sometimes the
presence of animals not agreeable to them, may have left certain areas
without the sheep, but for the most part these animals no doubt existed
from the eastern limit of their range clear to the Pacific. There were
sheep on the plains and in the mountains; those inhabiting the plains
when alarmed sought shelter in the rough bad lands that border so many
rivers, or on the tall buttes that rise from the prairies, or in the
small volcanic uplifts which, in the north, stretch far out eastward
from the Rocky Mountains.

While some hunters believe that the wild sheep were driven from their
former habitat on the plains and in the foothills by the advent of
civilized man, the opinion of the best naturalists is the reverse of
this. They believe that over the whole plains