230 Sheep 



Buxton has put on record some excellent notes on the habits of the 

 animal, from which the following is paraphrased. 



Arui inhabit districts where the cliffs are formed of reddish and 

 yellowish rocks, among which the rufous tawny of their coat renders them 

 so inconspicuous that, although by no means uncommon, they are extremely 

 difficult to detect. Throughout the district water is extremely scarce, 

 and, according to Arab reports, the sheep seldom, if ever, drink more than 

 once in four or five days, so that they are easily able to undertake long 

 journeys in search of liquid. They never enter the cedar forests, where 

 the climate is moister, and appear to inhabit much more broken and 

 precipitous ground than the majority of wild sheep ; this trait confirming 

 their affinity to the goats. As the Arabs have taken possession of all 

 situations in the mountains where water is to be met with, the arui have 

 been compelled to accustom themselves to the near presence of man and 

 the fiocks of domestic goats by which, in these districts, he is accompanied. 

 To avoid the nomads and their fiocks, the arui are constantly shifting their 

 quarters ; and they have by long use grown accustomed to selecting sites 

 tor repose where, while practically invisible themselves, they can obtain 

 a good view of their surroundings. Arui generally go about in small 

 parties ot four or five, not unfrequently a ewe being seen accompanied 

 only by a pair of yearling lambs. In captivity they thrive well and breed 

 freely ; the lambs, of which there may be either one or two at a birth, 

 being produced after a gestation of about one hundred and sixty davs. It 

 may be noted that the coloration of the arui is almost identical with that 

 of the bubaline hartebeest {Bubalis hoselaphiis) which inhabits the deserts 

 of Northern x^frica, although it has now retreated south of the Atlas. In 

 the edmi gazelle [Ga-zclla ci/vicri), which inhabits actually the same 

 districts as the arui, the colour of the upper-parts is rather paler, while the 

 under-parts and much of the legs are white, and the tail-tip black. Both 

 the edmi and the arui assimilate so closely to their surroundings as to be 



