356 



UNGULA TA 



is the Himalayan Argali (0. hodgsoni), having massive and strongly 

 curved horns, with bold ridges, like those of the true Argali. 

 Indeed, were it not for their isolated areas there would appear to 

 be no grounds for distinguishing these two closely allied forms, 

 and it is not improbable that they are really identical. 0. brookei 

 appears to have been founded on a hybrid between 0. hodgsoni and 

 0. vignei. In the same districts, and also in Southern Ladak, there 

 occurs the Bharal (0. nahura), with smaller, smoother, and more 

 spreading horns. Passing in a south-westerly direction we find a 

 series of smaller forms, 0. vignei of Ladak, 0. cycloceros of Northern 



FIG. 146. The Moufflon (Ovis musimon). From a living animal in the London Zoological 



Gardens. 



India, Persia, and Baluchistan, 0. gmelini of Asia Minor and Persia, 

 0. ophion, confined to the elevated -pine-clad Troodos Mountains of 

 the island of Cyprus, and said at the time of the British occupa- 

 tion in 1878 to have been reduced to a flock of about twenty-five 

 individuals, and 0. musimon, the Moufflon of Corsica and Sardinia 

 (see Fig. 146), believed to have been formerly also a native of 

 Spain. In the three latter species the females are hornless. Lastly, 

 we have the somewhat aberrant, Goat-like Aoudad (0. tragelaphus), 

 of the great mountain ranges of North Africa, in which, as already 

 mentioned, the skull and horns resemble those of the Bharal, 

 although the tail is longer, and there is a thick fringe of long hair 

 on the throat, chest, and fore legs. 



