ORDER ARTIODACTYLA: EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 603 



years ago they were quite numerous as we had rain up there most 

 winters. Till last winter however we had had no real rain for 

 some seven years and the sheep population had dropped to nearly 

 nil. Bedouin hunting with dogs was taking its toll of the sheep and 

 snaring over the few water holes was Jtilling large numbers of ibex 

 (incidentally the sheep never go to the water holes and exist on 

 the dew). 



"Then last winter . . . three big rains . . . brought to life all 

 the dormant plant seeds in the wadis. . . . 



"I sent a patrol up in August and the reports were most en- 

 couraging. . . . Quite a number of sheep tracks in the smaller 

 and more inaccessible wadis where the grazing had not been good 

 enough for camels but amply good for game." [Sheep will not 

 stay in the Ibex reserve about 50 miles south of Cairo.] 



"The secret of the Assiuti sheep country is the western face 

 of the Wadi Qena: for 100 kilometers it consists of a steep 

 precipice 1000 feet high with only two or three passes from the 

 top to the bottom of Wadi Qena. This forms the refuge for the 

 sheep; when things are quiet they work out over the plateau and 

 feed to within thirty miles of the Valley but when the country is 

 disturbed or grazing nonexistent they go back into the cliffs of 

 Wadi Qena for safety and for certain shrubs there which survive the 

 drought. No other part of the Eastern desert has a similar in- 

 accessible refuge area. . . . The sheep panics at the slightest 

 sign of man or camels." (T. W. Russell, in litt., October 27, 

 1935.) 



Palestine. "No more wild Bovidae live in Palestine to-day. Up 

 to a quarter of a century ago Ammotragus lervia still lived in the 

 Wadi Arabah. The Bedouins hunted it under the name of 'el- 

 Kebsch' ('the sheep'). It was already extremely rare when I came 

 to Palestine 29 years ago." (Aharoni, 1930, p. 328.) 



"The Barbary Wild Sheep . . . may have lived in the mountains 

 around and south of the Dead Sea up to the beginning of this 

 century. However, more reliable data are needed before this de- 

 termination can be definitely accepted." (Bodenheimer, 1935, 

 p. 116.) 



Libyan Arui 



AMMOTRAGUS LERVIA FASSINI Lepri 



Ammotragus lervia Fassini Lepri, Atti Pontif. Accad. Sci. Nuovi Lincei, 



Anno 83, p. 271, 1930. (Garian range, northwestern Libya.) 

 FIG.: Zammarano, 1930, p. 26, fig. (subsp.?). 



This Libyan subspecies is considered a very rare animal (Zam- 

 marano, 1930, p. 26) . 



