Post 01498
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Beneath this bench where all had paused, the wall was perilously steep for perhaps one hundred feet. A moment after the lambs landed, the ram followed the bench round the wall for several yards, then began to descend the steep wall by tacking back and forth on broken and extremely narrow ledges, with many footholds barely two inches wide. He was well down, when he missed his footing and fell. He tumbled outward, turned completely over, and, after a fall of about twenty feet, struck the wall glancingly, at the same time thrusting his feet against it as though trying to right himself. A patch of hair–and perhaps skin–was left clinging to the wall. A few yards below this, while falling almost head first, he struck a slope with all four feet and bounded wildly outward, but with checked speed. He dropped on a ledge, where with the utmost effort he regained control of himself and stopped, with three or four stiff plunges and a slide. From there he trotted over easy ways and moderate slopes to the bottom, where he stood a while trembling, then lay down.
The flock, after playing and feeding about for an hour or more, started to return. The injured leader lay quietly on the grass, but with head held bravely erect. The two lambs raced ahead and started to climb the precipice over the route they had come down. One ewe went to the bottom of the wall, then turned to look at the big-horned leader who lay still upon the grass. She waited. The lambs, plainly eager to go on up, also waited. Presently the ram rose with an effort and limped heavily away. There was blood on his side. He turned aside from the precipice and led the way back toward the top by long easy slopes. The flock slowly followed. The lambs looked at each other and hesitated for some time. Finally they leaped down and raced rompingly after the others.
The massive horns of the rams, along with the audacious dives that sheep sometimes make on precipices, probably suggested the story that sheep jump off a cliff and effectively break the shock of the fall by landing on their horns at the bottom! John Charles Frémont appears to have started this story in print. Though sheep do not alight on their horns, this story is still in circulation and is too widely believed. Every one with whom I have talked who has seen sheep land after a leap says that the sheep land upon their feet. I have seen this performance a number of times, and on a few occasions there were several sheep; and each and all came down feet first. Incidentally I have seen two rams come down a precipice and strike on their horns; but they did not rise again! The small horns of the ewes would offer no shock-breaking resistance if alighted upon; yet the ewes rival the rams in making precipitous plunges.