iqS great game of the world. 



WILD SHEEP OF THIAN SHAN (Ovis karelini). 

 [Sir Victor Brooke, Bart., and Mr. B. Brooke, P.Z.S. 1875, p. 512.] 



The horns are moderately thick, with rather rounded edges ; frontal 

 surface very prominent ; orbital surface rather flat, narrowing only in 

 the last third of its length. The horns are three times as long as the 

 skull. The basal and terminal axes of the horn rise parallel with 

 each other; the median axis is parallel with the axis of the skull. 

 The neck is covered by a white mane, shaded with greyish brown. 

 The light brown of the back and sides is separated from the yellowish 

 white of the belly by a wide dark line. The light brown of the upper 

 parts gets gradually lighter towards the tail, where it becomes greyish 

 white, but does not form a sharply marked anal disk. On the back 

 there is a sharply marked dark line running from the shoulders to 

 the loins. I did not find any soft hair under the long winter hair in 

 October. 



Height at the shoulder, 3 ft. 6 in. ; length of the horns, from 44 in. 

 to 45 in. 



Range. — Ovis karelini inhabits all the Semiretchinsk Altai, and 

 also the Sapliskey Altai, but is not so common there as in the moun- 

 tains between Tamgali (?) and Kaskelen ; but it is partly driven from 

 this latter locality by the Cossack sportsmen, and has gone to a 

 higher elevation, namely the Kebin Steppe, above the range of trees. 

 East of Tamgali (?) (Turgeli) (?), on the bare mountains and plains 

 near the rivers Chilik and Kelen, Ovis karelini is very abundant, but 

 not on the mountains covered with trees ; it extends from this locality 

 as far as Santash. Further it inhabits all the neighbourhood of Issik 

 Kul ; is rather rare on the northern parts of the Thian Shan, which 

 are thickly wooded. I also met with numerous flocks in the steppes 

 of the Narin, where they find abundance of food and shelter at an 

 elevation of about 12,000 or 13,000 feet above the level of the sea. 



