ould 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 kil