286 MERISTIC VARIATION. [part I. 



had more than two horns, some having eight. I am informed 

 however by Mr E. H. Acton, who has spent some time in the 

 country, that many-horned sheep are by no means common in 

 Iceland at the present day. In Kishtwar (district of S.E. Kashmir) 

 a breed of 4-horned sheep is carefully preserved, in which the 

 horns are as a rule very symmetrical, somewhat resembling 

 No. 438 \ 



Xathusius states that a four-horned ram does not always beget 

 four-horned offspring even when the ewe has the same character, 

 and the variation between father and son in respect of horns is 

 frequently considerable. 



The best figures of many-horned sheep are those given by Buffon, Hist, nat., 

 Vol. xi. Pis. 31 and 32 (3-horned and 4-horned); Youatt, The Sheep, pp. 141 and 

 171, copied from Buffon. Numerous other figures are referred to by Nathusius, 

 but few of them are satisfactory. 



437. G-oat. A family of goats on an isolated farm near Bozen had 

 4 horns, which had been inherited for many generations. In most 

 cases the two ordinary horns were typical in shape and direction; 

 and in addition to these there were two lateral ones, which were 

 laterally curved, being sickle-shaped and bent into a semicircle. 

 Gredler, V., Korrespondenzbl. d. zool. min. Ver. Regensburg, 1869, 

 xxiii. p. 35. 



'438. Rupicapra tragus (Chamois) : skull bearing two well-formed 

 and symmetrical extra horns. The cores of these horns were a little 

 outside and posterior to the normal pair. Alston, E. R., P. Z. S., 

 1879, p. 802. 



439 Capreolus caprea (Roebuck) : specimens having a supernumerary 

 beam are probably not very rare, and a number of such antlers were 

 shewn among the hunting-trophies exhibited by H. H. the Duke of 

 Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and H. S. H. the Prince of Waldeck-Pyrmont at 

 the German Exhibition held in London in 1891. The normal antler of 

 the roebuck has a single beam rising vertically, then bifurcating, the 

 posterior branch again dividing. In the abnormal specimens from the 

 single burr of one side arose a supernumerary beam in addition to the 

 normal one. In one specimen, in which the supernumerary beam was 

 nearly as long as the normal one, the latter bifurcated as usual but 

 was rather more slender than that of the other side (Fig. 75 I.). In 

 another case (Fig. 75 II.), from the left burr, which was much enlarged, 

 arose (1) an innermost beam, in thickness and texture resembling that 

 of the normal right horn, though it was much shorter and bore no tine ; 

 (2) an external beam at once dividing into two almost equivalent 

 branches having about the same length as the innermost beam. In 

 such a case I know no criterion by which one of the three beams can 

 be certified to be the normal to the exclusion of the others. As in the 

 sheep and goats, the several horns resulting from subdivision seem to 

 be generally in or nearly in the same transverse plane. 



1 Godwin-Austen, H. H., P. Z. S., 1879, p. 802. 



