Even the hardest portions of the edge
of the hoof are comparatively soft and elastic; furthermore, the toes
admit of an extraordinary amount of both lateral and vertical movement,
allowing the foot to accommodate itself still more perfectly to the
irregularities of rock surfaces, while at the same time increasing the
gripping power.
At the base of Sheep Rock, one of the winter strongholds of the Shasta
flocks, there lives a stock-raiser who has had the advantage of
observing the movements of wild sheep every winter; and, in the course
of a conversation with him on the subject of their diving habits, he
pointed to the front of a lava headland about 150 feet high, which is
only eight or ten degrees out of the perpendicular. "There," said he, "I
followed a band of them fellows to the back of that rock yonder, and
expected to capture them all, for I thought I had a dead thing on them.
I got behind them on a narrow bench that runs along the face of the wall
near the top and comes to an end where they couldn't get away without
falling and being killed; but they jumped off, and landed all right, as
if that were the regular thing with them."
"What!" said I, "jumped 150 feet perpendicular! Did you see them do it?"
"No," he replied, "I didn't see them going down, for I was behind them;
but I saw them go off over the brink, and then I went below and found
their tracks where they struck on the loose rubbish at the bottom.
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