The Argali
This animal is found in Siberia and Mongolia, and also in Tibet. It is the largest of all living wild sheep, and is about as big as a large donkey, and has enormous twisted and wrinkled horns, which are sometimes as much as four feet long, and nineteen inches round at the base. The male Tibetan argali has a ruff on the throat. The usual color is a stony gray, mingled with white in summer in the case of the old males.
The argali rams are very fond of fighting one another, and such fierce conflicts take place that sometimes their horns are broken short off, and left lying upon the ground. And it will give you some idea of the size of these horns when we tell you that more than once a fox has been found lying fast asleep in one of them!
The argali is a mountain-loving animal, seldom seen at a lower level than twelve or thirteen thousand feet even in winter, while in summer it ascends much higher. It is a most difficult creature to approach, for it lives in small flocks, which always post a sentry to keep careful watch while they are feeding. At the slightest sign of danger the alert sentinel gives the alarm and a moment later the animals are dispersing in all directions, scrambling so actively over rocks and up and down precipices that is it quite impossible to follow them.
It has sometimes been said that when the argali leaps from a height it alights on its horns, which break the force of its fall. But this statement seems to be quite untrue.
Writing of the argali of Southern Siberia, the naturalist Brehm says that when the Tartars want mutton an argali-hunt is organized. The Tartar hunters advance on their horses at intervals of 200 or 300 yards, and when the sheep are started generally manage, by riding, shooting, coursing them with dogs, and shouting, to bewilder, shoot, or capture several.
The Guljar, or Marco Polo's Sheep
On the high plateau of the Pamirs and the adjacent districts Marco Polo's sheep is found. The rams are only slightly less in size than the Siberian argali; the hair is longer than in that species, and the horns are thinner and more slender and extend farther in an outward direction. An adult ram may weigh three hundred pounds. The first description of this sheep was given by the old traveler whose name it now bears. He said that on the Pamir plateau wild animals were met with in large numbers, particularly a sheep of great size, having horns three, four, and even six palms in length; and that the shepherds (hunters?) formed ladles and vessels from them. In the Pamirs Marco Polo's sheep is seldom found at less than 11,000 or 12,000 feet above the sea. In the Tian-Shan Mountains it is said to descend to 2,000 or 3,000 feet. They prefer the hilly, grassy plains, and only seek the hills for safety. On the Pamirs they are said to be very numerous in places, one hunter stating that he saw in one day not less than six hundred head.
The Bighorn Sheep of America and Kamchatka
North America has its parallel to the argalis in the famous bighorn. It is now very rare even in Northern Canada, and becoming scarce in the United States, though a few are found here and there at various points on the Rocky Mountains as far south as Mexico. In habits it is much the same as other wild sheep—that is to say, it haunts the rock-hills and "bad lands" near the mountains, feeding on the scanty herbage of the high ground, and not descending unless driven down by snow.