578 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



[Near the Chagan-gol Valley] we covered an enormous stretch of country 

 that day, and saw large numbers of sheep .... We came across a great 

 quantity of derelict horns that day; in one small valley below a cliff I counted 

 fifty in about half a mile; it is in places like this that most of the horns 

 are met with, the reason being that the driven snow lies deep in such 

 places in winter. At that season packs of wolves are continually harrying the 

 sheep; a herd, in its mad rush for safety, gets caught in a drift; the females 

 and young rams, unencumbered with 40 Ib. weight of horn, make good their 

 escape, while the old rams get stuck fast and are killed. This accounts for the 

 predominance of fair-sized horns lying about in certain localities. . . . 



Undoubtedly, in by-gone ages, the distribution of these sheep was con- 

 siderably wider than it is at the present day. At the period of Central Asian 

 history when the whole land was one great battlefield, and every able-bodied 

 man was drafted into the ranks of the vast hordes which swept backwards 

 and forwards under the banners of Jenghis and other conquerors, people 

 could have had little time for hunting, and, in all probability, lived in com- 

 pact communities for safety's sake; this allowed the sheep to roam undis- 

 turbed over large areas to-day overrun by the nomads. 



In more recent times the introduction of firearms into the country has 

 undoubtedly helped to thin out the game ; but . . . this is only a minor cause 

 for their steady decrease, both in number and distribution; the primary cause 

 is undoubtedly the rapid increase of the population on the Chinese-Russian 

 frontier. Not only is the birth-rate among the Kirghiz increasing, but yearly 

 large numbers are driven over to the Chinese side by the advancing Russian 

 settlers. This necessitates the opening up of new grazing-grounds year by 

 year, so that the game is slowly but surely being driven into higher and 

 more inaccessible regions. The contraction of their grazing grounds is the 

 chief cause of the steady decrease in the numbers of the wild-sheep of Cen- 

 tral Asia. 



The southern slope of the Tannu-ola Range, at the point where we crossed 

 it [northwest of Ubsa Nor], was the first place where we came upon signs 

 of sheep, in the shape of a few old horn-cores and fragments of horn. But 

 they were of great age, and I can safely say that, at the present time, no 

 sheep reach as far east as this. The western slope of the Kundelun group 

 [southwest of Ubsa Nor] was the first place where we came upon fresh horns, 

 it being the limit of their winter range in this direction. The natives say 

 that there are sheep at the head-waters of the Kemchik [near the western 

 end of the Tannu-ola] ; . . . this would be the most northerly limit of the 

 ammon. . . . 



Between the Chagan-bugazi and Ulan-daba is the region which sportsmen 

 have most visited, and, without doubt; it is the nucleus of the ammon ground. 

 The higher pastures of this broad mass of ideal sheep-country lie above the 

 summer range of the Mongols, and rams are still undoubtedly plentiful there. 

 The Bain-Khairkhan, in the days of Demidoff and Littledale, must have 

 abounded in rams, but to-day the natives graze their flocks over the greater 

 part of it, and the chances of shooting a good head there are remote. There 

 is ample proof that the range of Ovis ammon typica extends along the whole 

 length of the Great or Mongolian Altai, to the eastern extremity of the range. 



Miller adds (pp. 346-347) that the Kirei Kirghiz reported plenty 

 of sheep in "the Baitik Bogdo Range, a southern and somewhat 

 isolated appendage of the Altai." 



According to Salesski (1934, p. 375), the range of this animal 

 formerly extended over nearly all of the southern, southwestern, 



