ORDER ARTIODACTYLA: EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 569 



closing for two or three years and then reopening to limited shooting with 

 a higher size limit: I would recommend 26 inches. . . . 



As far as relative damage by sportsmen and villagers is concerned, it must 

 be remembered that the modern young officer has still to be educated in 

 the ethics of sport and the principles of preservation. There is a great deal 

 of poaching carried out by Europeans in rukhs near the railway: notably 

 Nili and Lehri Godari. I heard of three British officers basing their operations 

 on Tarki railway station in the middle of last October, and killing 14 rams 

 between them. I have personal knowledge of two other cases .... I found 

 that much of this was due to ignorance of the shooting regulations, and after 

 getting the Commandant of the Musketry School at Rawalpindi to post a 

 notice on the subject, the practice ceased to a large extent. . . . 



Villagers' dogs are a fruitful source of damage, as they chase ewes heavy 

 with young, and frequently destroy the new-born lambs. . . . 



Complaints as to destruction of crops . . . were justified in some few 

 localities before this last disastrous season. 



Burrard (1925?, p. 189) regards the animal as "still fairly plen- 

 tiful" in the Punjab Salt Range. 



"In the first half of November I was in the oorial preserves of 

 the Campbellpore district, and consider that the stock is one third 

 of what it was five years ago: again due to unlicensed rifles and 

 want of whole-time watchers" (C. H. Stockley, in litt., December 

 12, 1933). 



Afghan Urial 



OVIS VIGNBI CYCLOCEROS Hutton 



Ovis Cycloceros Hutton, Calcutta Jour. Nat. Hist., vol. 2, p. 514, 1842. ("The 

 Huzarreh [=Hazara] hills," Afghanistan.) 



SYNONYM: fOvis blanfordi Hume (1878). 



FIGS.: Hutton, 1842, pi. 19; Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, vol. 46, pt. 2, pi. 4, 

 1878 ("blanfordi"); Lydekker, 1898c, pi. 13, and 1900, pi. 3, figs. 4, 4a, 

 p. 91, fig. 12; Lydekker, 1913a, pi. 20, fig. 1, and 1913c, vol. 1, p. 88, fig. 26. 



The fact that much of the Afghan Urial's range lies beyond the 

 ordinary reach of European hunters would seem to augur well 

 for its survival in fair 'numbers to the present day. Information 

 from some localities, however, is not encouraging. 



Upper parts uniform yellowish or fawn-colored brown; but- 

 tocks, under parts, and inside of limbs white; knees and fore 

 pasterns dirty white; face bluish gray; forepart of forelegs gray- 

 ish; a black beard, interspersed with white or gray hairs, ex- 

 tending from the jaws to the chest. In summer the hair is stiff and 

 short; in winter, coarser and less smooth, and of a darker shade of 

 brown. The upper parts become interspersed with white in old 

 individuals. Horns triangular, strongly wrinkled; curving strongly 

 from the base, forming nearly a circle. Height at shoulder, 32 inches. 

 (Hutton, 1842, pp. 515-516.) Hay (1840, pp. 440-441) describes 

 an adult male from Bameean, in the Hindu Kush, as being 40 inches 



