Heads and Horns 11 



An extra large pair of horns of this species is the grandest trophy a sheep- 

 hunter ever can secure, not even excepting the wide-horned Or in poll, of Tibet. 



These horns, now fully dry and shrunken quite two inches, measure 19Vi> 

 inches in basal circumference, ;>9'/ s inches in length on the curve, and the dis- 

 tance between the tips is 40 inches. This specimen came directly from the Altai 

 Mountains, with the skin dried down upon the skull, and thus the entire skull 

 was perfectly preserved. So enormous are these horns, that beside them the 

 largest horns of our American Big-Horn seem small. In Mr. Rowland 

 Ward's list of sixty-two ol' the largest heads in the world, this one stands as 

 number four.* 



The Siar Mountains, also of central Asia, have contributed a fine pair of 

 horns of the very rare Littledale Sheep, Ovis siarensis (Plate III, Fig. 5), 

 marked by very many narrow growth-rings, and an open spiral. Of this spe- 

 cies only ten specimens are recorded, and for one so rare, this specimen is of 

 very satisfactory size. So far as the records of sport are concerned, its home 

 is almost a term incognita. These horns are loVi inches in circumference and 

 47 inches in length. 



The other Asiatic sheep represented in the collection are the Kamchatkan 

 Sheep. (Orin tiiricola) , the Aoudad of northern Africa (Plate III, Fig. 2), 

 the liurrhel or Blue Wild Sheep of the Himalayas of northern India (Plate 

 III, Fig. 3), and the small, wide-horned sheep of Tibet, Ovis karelini 

 (Plate III, Fig. (>). The horns of the last-named species are like an under- 

 study of those of the justly famed Ovis poll; but their spread between tips is 

 only 4.5 inches. 



Of the Xew World mountain sheep, which inhabit the western mountains 

 of this continent from the Arctic coast as far south as the northern states of 

 Mexico, there are about six well-defined species. The largest is the stately 

 Big-Horn of the Rockies, Ovis canadensis (Fig. 1), now very rare in every 

 portion of the United States and Mexico, and extinct in most of its former 

 haunts, but still lingering in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia. This 

 species culminates in southeastern British Columbia, and it is from that region 

 that the largest horns have come. The nucleus collection contains a very im- 

 posing mounted head which was obtained at Banff for the writer by Mr. G. 

 (). Shields, in 1 !><):*. After four years of shrinking the horns now measure ley- 

 inches in basal circumference, 16 inches when measured 18 inches from the 



*" Records of Big Game," fifth edition, iyo6, page 402. 



