Moreover, each one of the flock, while following the guidance of the
most experienced, yet climbed with intelligent independence as a perfect
individual, capable of separate existence whenever it should wish or be
compelled to withdraw from the little clan. The domestic sheep, on the
contrary, is only a fraction of an animal, a whole flock being required
to form an individual, just as numerous flowerets are required to make
one complete sunflower.
Those shepherds who, in summer, drive their flocks to the mountain
pastures, and, while watching them night and day, have seen them
frightened by bears and storms, and scattered like wind-driven chaff,
will, in some measure, be able to appreciate the self-reliance and
strength and noble individuality of Nature's sheep.
Like the Alp-climbing ibex of Europe, our mountaineer is said to plunge
headlong down the faces of sheer precipices, and alight on his big
horns. I know only two hunters who claim to have actually witnessed this
feat; I never was so fortunate. They describe the act as a diving
head-foremost. The horns are so large at the base that they cover the
upper portion of the head down nearly to a level with the eyes, and the
skull is exceedingly strong.
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