BEDEN 



89 



THE BEDEN OR NUBIAN IBEX 



{Capra nubiand) 

 Beden OR Bedan, ARABIC 



The most obvious distinction between sheep and goats (in which 

 ibex are included) is the presence on the chins of the males of the 

 latter of a beard of long 

 hair, and the strong dis- 

 agreeable odour exhaled 

 by the members of that sex. 



The beden is a true 

 ibex, easily distinguished 

 from both the European 

 and the Central Asiatic 

 species by the slenderness 

 of the long horns of the 

 bucks, in which the knotted 

 front surface is very narrow, 

 with the outer angle sharp- 

 ly bevelled away. Bucks 

 stand about 33 inches in 

 height at the shoulder; and 

 in fine examples the horns 

 may measure 40 inches or 

 more along the curve, the 

 maximum recorded lengths 

 of the African race being 

 5 I and 46|- inches. Does 

 are smaller, with horns 

 only 5 or 6 inches long. 



The typical locality of 

 the species is Upper Egypt 

 and Nubia,but it apparently 

 also exists in the mountains 

 of Morocco and the interior 



of Senegambia, as it certainly does in those of Palestine and the 

 Sinaitic Peninsula, as well as in those of the Hadramaut district of 

 southern Arabia. The typical race {Capra nubiana typica) is the only 



Fig. 29.— Head of the Sinaitic Race of the Nubian Ibex. 



