Post 24743
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The young lambs, one or two at a birth, are usually born about the first of May in the alpine heights above timber-line. What a wildly royal and romantic birthplace! The strange world spreading far below and far away; crags, snowdrifts, brilliant flowers,–a hanging wild garden, with the ptarmigan and the rosy finches for companions! The mother has sole care of the young; for several weeks she must guard them from hungry foxes, eagles, and lions. Once I saw an eagle swoop and strike a lamb. Though the lamb was knocked heels over head, the blow was not fatal. The eagle wheeled to strike again, but the mother leaped up and shielded the wounded lamb. Eaglets are occasionally fed on young lambs, as skulls near eagle’s nests in the cliffs bear evidence.
A number of ewes and lambs one day came close to my hiding-place. One mother had two children; four others had one each. An active lamb had a merry time with his mother, butting her from every angle, rearing up on his hind legs and striking with his head, and occasionally leaping entirely over her. While she lay in dreamy indifference, he practiced long jumps over her, occasionally stopping to have a fierce fight with an imaginary rival. Later he was joined by another lamb, and they proceeded to race and romp all over a cliff, while the mothers looked on with satisfaction. Presently they all lay down, and a number of magpies, apparently hunting insects, walked over them.
In one of the side cañons on the Colorado in Arizona, I was for a number of days close to a flock of wild sheep which evidently had never before seen man. On their first view of me they showed marked curiosity, which they satisfied by approaching closely, two or three touching me with their noses. Several times I walked among the flock with no excitement on their part. I was without either camera or gun. The day I broke camp and moved on, one of the ewes followed me for more than an hour.