once every fifteen minutes.

"Their chief enemy is the mountain lion, which hunts them on the cliffs,
apparently never about watering places. Lion tracks were not rare about
the sheep runs. They are extremely wary about coming down for water, and
take every precaution. Before leaving the cliffs to cross the valley to
water they usually select some high ridge and descend along this, gazing
constantly at the spring, usually halting ten or more minutes on every
prominent rocky point. When within a hundred yards or less of the water,
a long careful search is made, and a great deal of ear-work performed,
the head being turned first to one side and then to the other. When they
do at last satisfy themselves, they make a bolt and drink quickly,
stopping occasionally to listen and look for danger.

"If, however, they should be surprised at the water they do not flee at
once, but gaze for some time at the intruder, and then go a short way
and take another look, and so on until at last they break into a steady
run for the cliffs. At least thirty sheep were observed at the water,
and none came before 9:30 A.M. or later than 2:30 P.M., most coming down
between 12:00 M. and 1:00 P.M. This habit has probably been established
to avoid lions, which are seldom about during the hottest part of the
day. A few ewes were seen with two lambs, but the greater number had
only one. Most of the young appeared about two months old. Their usual
gait was a short gallop, seldom a walk or trot."

The great curving horns of the wild sheep have always exercised more or
less influence on people's imagination, and have given rise to various
fables. These horns are large in proportion to the animal, and so
peculiar that it has seemed necessary to account for them on the theory
that they had some marvelous purpose. The familiar tale that the horns
of the males were used as cushions on which the animal alighted when
leaping down from great heights is old. A more modern hypothesis which
promises to be much shorter lived is that advanced a year or two ago by
Mr. Geo. Wherry, of Cambridge, England, who suggested that "The form of
the horn and position of the ear enables the wild sheep to determine the
direction of sound when there is a mist or fog, the horn acting like an
admiralty megaphone when used as an ear trumpet, or like the topophone
(double ear trumpet, the bells of which turn opposite ways) used for a
fog-bound ship on British-American vessels to det