ORDER ARTIODACTYLA : EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 577 



(Sushkin, 1925, p. 149). However, in various parts of the inter- 

 vening territory it still occurs in considerable numbers. 



An old ram from the Altai (Chagan Gol district) is described 

 by J. H. Miller (in Carruthers, 1913, p. 339) as follows: horns 61J 

 inches in length, 20i inches in girth, and with a spread of 37-| 

 inches; height at shoulder, 53 inches; in autumn coat the nose is 

 white, forehead and cheeks gray-brown, and neck and upper part 

 of body dark chocolate, freely sprinkled with white hairs; belly 

 and rump-patch white; legs gray-mottled above and white below 

 the knees. "In full winter coat an ammon ram is of a dirty-white 

 colour on the body and neck, and pure white on the nose, legs, and 

 rump. . , . He does not grow a long neck-ruff." 



Elsewhere Carruthers (1915, p. 181) writes: 



The home of the ammon stretches from the Siberian frontier to the borders 

 of the high Gobi Desert; it consists, in fact, of the north portion of the great 

 plateau. The wild sheep range on to the watershed of the mountains which 

 form the actual frontier between the two Empires .... The Little Altai, the 

 Sailugem Range and the Tannu-ola Mountains form the northern limit; the 

 crest of the Mongolian or Great Altai bounds their territory on the west; 

 towards the south and east they range as far as well-pastured hill country 

 extends into the Gobi. The nucleus of their range ... is ... between the 

 Little and the Mongolian Altai. This is where they are most numerous and 

 run largest; towards the south and east they diminish in numbers and size, 

 it being still doubtful whether the wild sheep which the Russian explorers 

 have found on the Ati-bogdo and Gurbun Saikhan ranges in the Northern 

 Gobi are true Ovis ammon or some new variety of the species. . . . There 

 is a wild sheep in the mountains to the south-east of Lake Baikal which is 

 probably of the same type. 



According to Ledebour and Bunge, Argali had disappeared by 

 1820 from Uimon, east of Ust-Kamenogorsk, but were numerous on 

 the Chulyshman Mountains ; they were also found on the mountains 

 along the Katun and the Chuya. Pevtzoff (1883) reports them as 

 not numerous in the Khangai Mountains, southeast of Ubsa Nor. 

 The present eastern limit is the sources of the Selenga River. (Na- 

 sonov, 1923, pp. 117, 120-121.) Sushkin (1925, p. 154) mentions 

 the Russian Altai, Tannu-ola, and the mountains near Kosso Gol 

 as the extreme northern habitats. 



Miller (in Carruthers, 1913, pp. 320-346) gives the following 

 account: 



[In the Little Altai] roams one of the finest beasts in nature, the father 

 of all sheep, the Ovis ammon. . . . There are few species of big game that 

 appeal more to the heart of the hunter and lover of the wild regions of the 

 earth, than an old ram in his upland solitudes. Apart frpm the magnificent 

 horns he carries,' his unrivalled wariness tests the resources of the hunter to 

 the utmost. . . . 



It is principally persecution, from time immemorial, by their most dreaded 

 enemies, the wolves, that has made them the wonderful tacticians that they 

 are. 



