him and kill him at long range. In the days of black powder and
short ranges the sheep had a chance to escape; but now he has none
whatever. He has keener vision and more alertness than the goat,
but as a real life-saving factor that amounts to nothing! Wild
sheep are easily and quickly exterminated.

The mountain goat has no protection except elevation and
precipitous rocks, and to the hunter who has the energy to climb
up to him he, too, is easy prey. Usually his biped enemy finds him
and attacks him in precipitous mountains, where running and hiding
are utterly impossible. When discovered on a ledge two feet wide
leading across the face of a precipice, poor Billy has nothing to
do but to take the bullets as they come until he reels and falls
far down to the cruel slide-rock. He has a wonderful mind, but its
qualities and its usefulness belong in Chapter XIII.

Warm-Coated Animals Avoid "Fresh Air." On this subject there is a
strange divergence of reasoning power between the wild animals of
cold countries and the sleeping-porch advocates of today.

Even the most warm-coated of the fur-bearing animals, such as the
bears, foxes, beavers, martens and mink, and also the burrowing
rodents, take great pains to den up in winter just as far from the
"fresh air" of the cold outdoors as they can attain by deep
denning or burrowing. The prairie-dog not only ensconces himself
in a cul-de-sac at the end of a hole fourteen feet deep and long,
but as winter sets in he also tightly plugs up the mouth of his
den with moist earth. When sealed up in his winter den the black
bear of the north draws his supply of fresh air through a hole
about one inch in diameter, or less.