long this in a general way, scatters out on both sides
feeding on the grass heads that project above the snow, and often with
their noses pushing the light snow away to get at the grass beneath. I
have never seen them do this, nor have I seen them paw to get at the
grass, but the marks in the snow where they have fed showed clearly that
the snow was pushed aside by the muzzle.

Like most other animals, wild and tame, sheep are very local in their
habits, and one little band will occupy the same basin in the mountains
all summer long, going to water by the same trail, feeding in the same
meadows and along the same hillsides, occupying the same beds stamped
out in the rough slide rock, or on the great rock masses which have
fallen down from the cliff above. Even if frightened from their chosen
home by the passage of a party of travelers, they will go no further
than to the tops of the rocks, and as soon as the cause of alarm is
removed will return once more to the valley.

I saw a striking instance of this some years ago, when, with a
Geological Survey party, I visited a little basin on the head of one of
the forks of Stinking Water in Wyoming, where a few families of sheep
had their home.

Our appearance alarmed the sheep, which ran a little way up the face of
the cliff, and then, stopping occasionally to look, clambered along more
deliberately. When we reached the head of the basin we found that there
was no way down on the other side, and that we must go back as we had
come. The afternoon was well advanced and the pack train started back
and camped only a mile or two down the valley, while I stopped among
some great rocks to watch the movements of the sheep. Though at first
not easy to see, the animals' presence was evident by their calling, and
at length several were detected almost at the top of the cliff, but
already making their way back into the valley.

I was much interested in watching a ewe, which was coming down a steep
slope of slide rock. There was apparently no trail, or if there was
one, she did not use it, but picked her way down to the head of the
slope of slide rock, stood there for a few moments, and then, after
bleating once or twice, sprang well out into the air and alighted on the
slide rock, it seemed to me, twenty-five feet below where she had
been. A little cloud of dust arose and she appeared to be buried to her
knees in the slide rock. I could not see how it was possible for her to
have mad