The weight of his specimen
was 344 pounds,[2] which is, perhaps, about an average for full-grown
males. The females are about a third lighter.
Besides these differences in size, color, hair, etc., as noted above, we
may observe that the domestic sheep, in a general way, is expressionless,
like a dull bundle of something only half alive, while the wild is as
elegant and graceful as a deer, every movement manifesting admirable
strength and character. The tame is timid; the wild is bold. The tame
is always more or less ruffled and dirty; while the wild is as smooth
and clean as the flowers of his mountain pastures.
The earliest mention that I have been able to find of the wild sheep in
America is by Father Picolo, a Catholic missionary at Monterey, in the
year 1797, who, after describing it, oddly enough, as "a kind of deer
with a sheep-like head, and about as large as a calf one or two years
old," naturally hurries on to remark: "I have eaten of these beasts;
their flesh is very tender and delicious." Mackenzie, in his northern
travels, heard the species spoken of by the Indians as "white buffaloes."
And Lewis and Clark tell us that, in a time of great scarcity on the
head waters of the Missouri, they saw plenty of wild sheep, but they
were "too shy to be shot.
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