76 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NA TURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVIII, 



chance at, as a skin fetches 3 Rupees, the brutes are so cunning that 

 very few are killed in the course of a year. I seldom came across them 

 during my trip, and then only a very few at a time, and was told they 

 leave that Pamir in the early spring, returning on the first heavy fall 

 of snow. 



To return to my narrative, that was the last shot I fired with my 

 rifle on the Pamir, though I saw a fine ram with a massive head of 

 over 63, a few days afterwards. Jt was a bad day, snowing continually 

 and I did not want to go out at all, but the Kirghiz persuaded me to, so 

 I started, but with many misgivings, which proved only too well founded, 

 for on finding the band with this good head in it, and attempting the 

 stalk, they winded us, and at once crossed the frontier, and we never 

 saw them again. 1 then tried all the nullahs to the east, and south- 

 east to the Khnnjerab Pass, but the best I could find were a 

 couple of rams just over 60 and having raised my lowest limit then to 

 63, I refused to shoot either, much to the disgust of the Kirghiz with 

 me at the time. Not to throw away any chance of getting another 

 good one, I worked my way back to the Kuktaruk, trying all the 

 nullahs en route again in hopes of a big ram having crossed over, but we 

 did not find what I considered a shootable head, and I realised the fact 

 that I was done, and on September 4th we left the Pamir, crossing 

 by the Killik Pass, then clear of snow, and easy going. 



It will be seen by the foregoing notes that, though small rams abound 

 on the Taghdumbash, big ones are very few and far between, and this, 

 I feel convinced, is partly, if not greatly, owing to the indiscriminate 

 slaughter of immature heads, by British sportsmen, that takes place 

 every summer. Whenever I came across a ram of about 58, the 

 Kirghiz with me, while saying he knew it was not big enough for me, 

 used invariably to assure me that any other Sahib would be very 

 pleased with a head of that size, and would shoot all that he could, 

 and no doubt they only said the sad truth. I could forgive a man 

 shooting a head of this sort towards the end of his trip, if he had 

 failed to find a good one, but to go on shooting ram after ram, all 

 with immature heads, is wicked, and those who do it are simply 

 depriving some sportsmen in the near future of the chance of getting 

 trophies worth having, while they take away a number of heads, it is 

 true, but not one that is really typical of a full-grown specimen of 

 this magnificent sheep. Two sportsmen a few years ago shot 11 rams 

 in 8 days, only 2 of which, the Kirghiz who was with them told me, 



