Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1895 — Leaps of a Mountain Sheep. [ARTICLE]

Leaps of a Mountain Sheep.

No; the mountain sheep does not leap from great heights, and land either upon his horns or his feet. He knows the strength of his materials too well to try it. His horns and skull might successfully withstand the shock, but the weight of his body would break his spinal column in two or three places, to say the least of it. It is true that when hard pressed a herd will sometimes plunge down a terribly steep incline, sliding and bounding from point to point, until they plow into the "slide-rock” below; but as to leaping over a sheer precipice, I never saw any one who even claimed to have ever witnessed such a thing. The old rams often fight by butting each other terifically, and often splinter, or sometimes break off, the ends of their horns in that way.—St. Nicholas, /