WILD SHEEP AND GOATS
| 1. Chamois. | 3. Argali. |
| 2. Moufflon. | 4. Markhor. |
The bighorn sheep are very partial to salt. Mr. Turner, who hunted them in British Columbia, says: "Wild sheep make periodical excursions to the mountain-tops to gorge themselves with salty clay. They may remain from an hour to two days, and when killed their stomachs will be found full of nothing but the clay formed from denuded limestone, which they lick and gnaw until sometimes deep tunnels are formed in the cliffs, large enough to hide six or seven sheep. The hunter, standing over one of these warrens, may bolt them within two yards of him. In the dead of winter sheep often come to the woods to feed on fir-trees. At such times they may be seen mixed with black-and-white-tailed deer, low on a river-bank. I have known them come within forty yards of an inhabited hut."
Mr. H. C. Nelson tells us that once he was sleeping with two other friends in a hut in the mountains where some miners had lived for a time. These men, when they washed up their pots and pans, threw the slops away at a certain place close by the hut. As all water used for cooking meat has salt put into it, a little salt remained on the surface. This the wild sheep had found out, and were in the habit of coming to lick it at night.
The bighorn sheep stands from three feet two inches to three feet six inches at the shoulder. The horns are of the general type of the argalis, but smoother. Another bighorn is found in Kamchatka. There is also a beautiful white race of bighorn inhabiting Alaska. The typical Rocky Mountain race is browner than the Asiatic argalis, and in winter is dark even beneath the front parts of the body. It is not found on the high peaks of the great ranges, but on difficult though lower ground on the minor hills.
The Urial
The vast range of the Himalayas affords feeding-ground to other species of wild sheep and wild goat, so different in the shape of the horns that the variations of the sheep race under domestication need not be matter for wonder when so much variety is seen in nature.
The urial, or sha, is found in Northwest India, on the Trans-Indus Mountains, and in Ladak, Northern Tibet, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Turkestan, and Southern Persia. The horns make a half-curve backward, and are flattened. The angle with the horizontal line across the ears is about half a right angle. The coat is of a reddish-gray color, with white on the belly, legs, and throat. This species has a very wide geographical distribution, and is the only wild sheep found in India proper.