Game Animals of India, etc. 



From this it will be inferred that it will not be possible 

 in all cases to refer a given specimen to its respective 

 race without knowing its place of origin. 



Firstly, we have the typical urin (Ovis vignei typicd) 

 of Astor, from which the shapo of Ladak appears to be 

 inseparable. This Ladak urial, as it may be con- 

 veniently called, is a comparatively large sheep in which 

 the coat is fawn-coloured rather than foxy rutous. As 

 a rule, the horns of the old rams turn markedly 

 inwards at their tips, and have their front angles 

 moderately prominent. 



Secondly, there is the Baluchi urial (O. vignei hlan- 

 fordi)^ in which the horns tend to turn outwardsat the tips, 

 forming a more open spiral, and have the front angles 

 prominent and occasionally showing a beaded structure. 

 This race (at first regarded as a distinct species) was 

 described by Mr, A, O, Hume in the Journal of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1877, on the evidence of 

 the skull of a ram from the Kelat district of Baluchistan, 

 in which the tips of the horns curve outwards, so as to 

 form a very open spiral. So open, indeed, is the spiral 

 that a portion of the inner surface (which in other urial 

 is completely concealed) is visible in a front view. In 

 a skull from Kelat in the British Museum the spiral is, 

 however, much less open, and there is no marked 

 outward divergence of the tips. Still it must evidently 

 belong to the same race. Moreover, the presumption 

 is that the urial from the rest of Baluchistan and 

 Afghanistan, and, in fact, from the Trans-Indus districts 

 in general, likewise belong to O. v. blanfordi^ as the 

 Indus must almost certainly form an impassable barrier 

 to these sheep. In confirmation of this view, it may be 

 mentioned that the horns of a very fine male urial 

 obtained by Dr. Aitchison, when on the Delimitation 

 Commission in Afghanistan, show a tendency to form 

 an open spiral, and have very prominent front angles. 

 In another head in the British Museum, from the hills 

 north of Peshawar, the front angles are more prominent 



100 



