490 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV HI. 



This appears to raise questions which perhaps the Baluchistan Natural 

 History Society will clear up. The sub-specific status given to the Baluchistan 

 Gazelle by reason of the form of horns of the female is certainly incorrect, for 

 the female chinkara of the Deccan has distinctly annulated horns. As regards 

 the colour of the face and the shape of the horns of the male, these also seem to 

 be fallacious reasons, for colour and form of horn vary in animals shot out of one 

 herd. Naturalists are surely too prone to establish sub-species. It is not clear 

 whether Mr. Lydekker means that the chinkara does not range above 3,000 feet in 

 Baluchistan, but I have seen them in that country at an elevation of 4,700 feet. 



Simla, January lbth, 1908. R. G. BURTON. 



No. V.— MAJOR KENNION'S WILD SHEEP. 



Three of the heads of the wild sheep obtained by Major R. L. Kennion near 

 Bujnard, Persia, previously referred to in the Field, March 30, April 6, and 

 July 30, are now mounted, and one of them has been handed over to the British 

 Museum by Mr. Rowland Ward. As Bujnard is situated in the valley lying 

 between the Ala Dagh on the south and the Kopet Dagh on the north, it was 

 from the first practically certain that the sheep would turn out to belong to the 

 Kopet Dagh race of the urial (Ovis vignei arhal). As the result of a comparison 

 of one of Major Kennion's specimens with a skull and horns from the Kopet 

 Dagh presented to the museum some years ago by Mr. St. George Littledale, 

 this is now definitely proved to be the case, both examples showing the 

 peculiarly wide, flat, and sparsely ridged front surface of the horns distinctive 

 of that race. The horns of the two finest of the Bujnard rams are very large, 

 forming rather more than a complete circle. The white ruffs of the same two 

 specimens are also very large — larger and more wholly white, I think, than 

 in any other race of the urial. In this respect these sheep differ very markedly 

 from Ovis orientalis, which occurs on the south side of the Elburz range, near 

 Tehran, the ruff in all the specimens of that species which have come under 

 my observation being comparatively small, and chiefly composed of black or 

 blackish hairs on the lower part of the throat. I may have something to write 

 about a gazelle head obtained by Major Kennion on a subsequent occasion.— 



R. L. 



{The above is from " The Field " of 28th December 1907.) 



No. VI.— SHEDDING OF THE ANTLERS OF THE MUNTJAC 

 OR BARKING DEER (CERVULUS MUNTJAC). 

 In the Field of 13th July there was an enquiry over the initials R. L. for any 

 information " as to whether Muntjacs shed their antlers annually or at irregular 

 intervals." This enquiry was prompted by the worn appearance of the antlers 

 of a head that the writer had examined in London of a Chinese Muntjac 

 (C. lacrymans), which pointed to the unlikelihood of the antlers having 

 become abraded and polished within a period of less than twelve months to 

 such an extent that the surface resembled an ivory tusk, if they are shed 

 annually. Definite information is appealed for on this point and perhaps some 



