376 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVI. 



should have included lily stalks and pebbles in its diet ? Another thing I 

 noticed was that though I smashed the base of the skull with a '577 magnum 

 bullet, and killed the creature outright about 11 a.m., yet the whole body was 

 jumping and quivering about 3 p.m. when we had got the skin off and cut oft* 

 the head. It was thrown out in a field, but the muscles continued jumping 

 till sunset quite enough to move the legs perceptibly— so much so that the 

 vultures which hovered about continually dared not touch the carcass yester- 

 day. Is this not extraordinary vitality ? 



A. H. A. SIMCOX, i.c.s. 

 In Camp, Bhusaval. 



23rd January, 1905. 



No. XVII— THE URIAL OF THE PUNJAB AND LADAK. 



Sportsmen, I have been informed, find considerable difficulty in distinguish- 

 ing between the various local forms of the Asiatic wild sheep known in the 

 Punjab as the urial, in Astor as the urin, and in Ladak as the sha or shapo, 

 and scientifically as Oris vignei ; and there is little wonder in this, seeing that 

 even naturalists (chiefly from the want of a sufficient series of specimens) are 

 far from being in accord on these points. 



The urial, or sha, is closely allied to Ovis gmelini, the wild sheep of Armenia 

 and North-Eastern Persia, of which the so called 0. ophion of the Troodoo 

 Mountains of Cyprus is nothing more than a local race. In both these two 

 species the colour of the coat tends more or less markedly to rufous chestnut, 

 the rams have a large ruff of long hair on the throat, and the ewes develope 

 small horns. The urial, or shapo, is distinguished by the colour tending very 

 generally to fawn, but more especially by the forward curvature of the horns, 

 which sweep along the sides of the face, and show more or less pronounced 

 angles bordering the flattened front surface. The old rams do not show the light 

 saddle mark which is so conspicuous in the Armenian wild sheep. So far as I 

 can at present determine, four local forms or races of urial may be recognised, 

 their distinctness from one another being based partly on actual physical 

 differences and partly on geographical distributions. From this it will be infer- 

 red that it will not be possible in all cases to refer a given specimen to its 

 respective race without knowing its place of origin. This, however, is a difficulty 

 to which we are gradually becoming accustomed as the refinements of system- 

 atic zoology increase. 



Firstly, we have the typical urin (Ovis vignei typical) of Astor, from which, 

 the shapo of Ladak appears to be inseparable. This Ladak urial, as it 

 may be convenien'ly called, is a comparatively large form, in which the coat is 

 fawn-coloured rather than foxy rufous. As a rule, the horns of the old rams 

 turn markedly inwards at their tips, and have their front angles moderately 

 prominent. Secondly, there is the Baluchi urial (0. vignei llanfordi), in which 

 the horns tend to turn outwards at the tips, forming a more open spiral, and 

 have the front angles prominent and occasionally showing a banded structure. 



