NO. 1900. 2JAMMALS FROM THE ALTAI MOVNTAINH—HOLLISTER. 525 



CAPREOLUS PYGARGUS (Pallas). 



1771. Ccrvus pygargus Pallas, Reise pro v. Russ. Reichs, vol. 1, p. 453. 

 1843. Capreolus pygargus Gray, List mamm. British Mus., p. 176. 



Roedeer are fairly abundant in the timbered parts of the Altai. 

 We saw many horns, attached to small parts of the frontals, in the 

 trading posts, and at Kosh-Agatch the trader had a great many pairs. 

 He told us that the animal is very abundant at times north of Kosh- 

 Agatch, and in the ^^dnter many come down in the low foothills near 

 town. It is then that most of these heads are taken. We obtained 

 five representative sets of antlers from this place. In the Tapucha 

 forest in August, in the early morning or late evening, we frequently 

 heard roebucks barking. Lyman's journal, written at this place, 

 contains the following notes : 



The roedeer near the pass to the south of Tapucha appear to spend the day in the 

 thick cover in the valleys. Here they are protected by the rank grass and the bushes. 

 In the late evening they come up on the high rocky outcrops which rise on both sides 

 of the valley bottom. I saw two in the timber, probably females, and one on the 

 hillside. The calling of the males, which I heard several times, is much like the 

 barking of an angry dog. At first I thought there were very few roedeer in this region, 

 but later I came to believe they were fairly plenty. If the weather be fine, it should 

 not be difficult to get a shot if one concealed oneself in these outcrops in the evening. 



Two varieties of the Siberian roedeer have been described by Mehely.^ 

 A slender horned lowland form Irom Tomsk, Ekaterinburg, and other 

 plains localities he calls Capreolus pygargus leptocerus, and a heavy 

 homed upland form from Minusinsk he calls O. p. pachycerus. These 

 subspecies are based on hunters' frontals and antlers, such as are 

 collected and traded by natives throughout the southern Siberian 

 mountains m great numbers, Kastschenko ^ states that no roedeer 

 arc known on the Siberian plains, and he beheves that Mehely's horns 

 aro from unknown locahties. He states further: 



Thero are no roedeer near Tomsk, which Mehely repeatedly indicated as one source 

 of his material; but by sportsmen and by commerce many horns are brought to Tomsk 

 from the Altai. Probably the horns were obtained by Count Zichy in Tomsk. 



Li an earlier paper, Kastschenko ^ has shown the immense variation 

 exhibited by roedeer antlers irom the Altai. Our observations in. the 

 trading posts, and the series of antlers brought back by us, agree 

 Well with his remarks; and these names for races of roedeer, based 

 on antlers of unkno^^^l origm, may both be placed in the synonymy 

 of pygargus. 



OVIS AMMON (Linnaeus). 



1758. Capi'a amnion Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, p. 70. 

 1777. Ovisammon Erxleben, Syst. Regn. Anim., vol. 1, p. 250. 



After crossing the Chuisaya Steppe, the second day south from 

 Kosh-Agatch, we saw weathered horns, and an occasional skull, of 



1 Dritte asiatische Forschungsreise des Grafen Eugen Zichy, vol. 2, Zoolog. Ergeb. I, Saugethiere, 1901, 

 p. 18, pi. 4. 

 « Ann. Mus. Zool. AoLid. St.-P^tersbourg, vol. 7, 1902, pp. 294-296. 

 3 Results Altai Zool. Exp., 1S9S, Toms'i, 1899, pp. 25-40, pis. 3, 4. 



