Mr. Blyth on the Genus Ovis. 249 



and the animal has an imposing appearance, finer than that of the 

 Nahoor. Its colour is much darker than that of the Moufflon. 



The Burrhel would seem to inhabit a much loftier region of the 

 Himalaya than the Nahoor, where it bounds lightly over the en- 

 crusted snow, at an altitude where its human pursuers find it difficult 

 to breathe. It has the bleat of the domestic species, as indeed they 

 all have, and is very shy and difficult of approach. Flocks of from 

 ten to twenty have been observed, conducted by an old male, which 

 make for the snowy peaks upon alarm, while their leader scrambles 

 up some crag to reconnoitre, and if shot at and missed, bounds off 

 a few paces further, and again stops to gaze. They pasture in the 

 deep hollows and grassy glens. The Society's specimen was met 

 with near the Boorendo Pass, at an altitude estimated to have been 

 from 15,000 to 17,000 feet. The notice in the * Bengal Sporting 

 Magazine' refers to the same locality ; and another notice most pro- 

 bably alludes to this species, in Lieut. Mutton's * Journal of a Trip 

 through Kunawar,' published in the * Journal of the Bengal Asiatic 

 Society' for 1839, p. 994*. Finally, Mr. Leadbeater informed me that 

 the horn described as having been in his possession was brought 

 from Nepal, together with specimens of the Nahoor and Musk, and 

 the skull and horns of a Himalaya Ibex, which I also examined. 



8. 0. cylindricornis , nobis (the Caucasian Argali). Col. Ha- 

 milton Smith notices this animal in his description of 0. Ammon 

 (published in Griffiths's English Edition of the * Regne Animal,' vol. 

 iv. p. 317), and writes me word that an individual died on landing 

 it at Toulon, whither it had been brought by a French consul, who 

 did not preserve the skull or skin, but set up the horns, which were 

 quite fresh when he saw them. " Each horn was about 3 feet long, 

 arcuated, round, as thick at the top as at the base, of a brown co- 

 lour, nearly smooth, and about 15 inches in circumference. They 

 were so heavy and unmanageable," writes Col. Smith, " that I could 

 not lift both together from the ground, nor place them in that kind 

 of juxta-position which would have given me an idea of their appear- 

 ance on the head. I could not well determine which was the right 

 or which the left horn. Circumstances prevented my taking a 

 second view of them, as they arrived only the day before I left Paris, 

 and they are now doubtless in the museum of that capital." In my 

 former paper I alluded to this animal as probably distinct, and ap- 

 parently allied to the Burrhel : the foregoing details confirm me in 

 that opinion, and remove all doubt of its distinctness, as there is no 

 other species to which they will at all apply. The sketch which 

 Col. Smith has favoured me with represents a sheep-horn, apparently 



* In the continuation of this 'Journal/ ibid, for 1840, p. 568, Lieut. 

 Hutton identifies the "Burul" of the Boorendo with Mr. Hodgson's Nahoor: 

 it is likely that both species are found there ; but there can be no doubt 

 whatever of their distinctness, as a comparison of the horns alone will sufiice 

 to show. " Of the Ovis Ammon,'' Lieut. Hutton observes, " I could learn 

 nothing, save that an animal apparently answering to the description is 

 found in Chinese Tartary, and I saw an enormous pair of its horns, nailed 

 among other kinds, to a tree as an offering to Devi," These, however, may 

 have belonged to 0. Polii. — E. B. 



