Marco Polo's Sheep 129 



saddle-shaped patch on the back, a white caudal disk, which does not 

 include the tail, and the legs below the knees and hocks pure white, as 

 are the under-parts. Above the caudal disk is a dark brown band ; the 

 shoulders and thighs are as dark as the back ; and on the nape of the neck 

 is a tult of very long slate-coloured hair, which is dark brown at the roots. 

 This tuft is also present in a female skin ; a much shorter one occurs in 

 a female head of O. ammon^ but it is absent in O. poli. From the latter 

 in winter dress the present specimens also differ by the dark shoulders and 

 thighs. The development of a white caudal disk in the winter coat alone 

 is another peculiarity of O. saircnsis. The specimens were said to have 

 been obtained in the Irtish valley, which drains the Semipalatinsk Altai. 



Compared with the Thian Shan variety of Marco Polo's sheep [Ovis 

 poli karelini), of which a ram in the winter coat is exhibited in the British 

 Museum, the present animal in the same dress is readily distinguishable 

 by the tuft of long hair on the nape, as it is by the chest, the front of the 

 upper part of the fore-legs, and the thighs being brown instead of white. 

 In the exhibited specimen ot po/i karelini the tail is wholly white, 

 whereas in the ram of Littledale's sheep in winter dress it is fawn-coloured 

 throughout, although in the female white with a fawn tip. In that sex 

 also the rump-patch is whiter than the ram, in which it is much suffused 

 with Riwn. 



MARCO POLO'S SHEEP 



{Ovis poli) 



The typical Pamir race of this magnificent sheep being fully described 

 in the companion volume on the game animals ot India and Tibet, need 

 not be redescribed on the present occasion. It inhabits the whole of the 

 Pamir country, from Hunza to near the sources of the Amu Daria, or 

 Oxus. 



