20 Domesticated Animals. 



_, . The rams of this breed are kept by many of the 



F hr ^' °^ '^^^^^^ priuces of India for the purpose of fight- 



^^ f?^H' ^^^' They are characterised by the convex profile 



bheep Ot India. ^^ ^j^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ gj^^^.(, ^^^ deer-like tail, 



which is quite unlike that of most other domesticated breeds. The 

 horns are not unlike those of the Himalayan Urial, or Wild Sheep, 

 Darwin, in his 'Animals and Plants under Domestication,' makes 

 a quotation from a paper by Brian Hodgson published in the 

 sixteenth volume of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal to 

 the eifect that the long tail of the ordinary domesticjited breeds of 

 Sheep ' in most of its phases is an instance of degeneracy in these 

 pre-eminently Alpine animals.' He appears, however, to have over- 

 looked the statement in the same paper that Hunia Sheep always 

 have short tails, a fact which suggests that this Hunia breed is 

 nearer the ancestral wild stock of Domesticated Sheep in general than 

 is any other strain. A further inference is that the Urial or Shapo of 

 tlie Himalaya is very likely to be the ancestral stock of at least some 

 of the domesticated breeds. The Museum possesses a number of 

 skulls and horns of Hunia rams, in which the form of the horns is 

 just what might be expected as the results of domestication of the 

 wild Urial. If the Hunia breed be the direct descendant of the wild 

 Urial, its wool may be regarded as an ultra development of the under- 

 fur ov pashm, which, as in other Tibetan animals, is very abundant in 

 that species. The strongly arched chaffron or ' Roman nose ' of the 

 rams of the Hunia breed is mentioned by Brian Hodgson as anothei- 

 feature due to domestication. 



A Hunia Fighting Earn from Baroda, India, was presented by 

 H.H. the Maharaja-Gaikwar of Baroda in 11)05, and is exhibited, 

 together with many skulls of rams from Nepal, Simla, and other pirts 

 of India, presented by Mr. Brian Hodgson in 1848 and by Mr. A. O. 

 Hume in 1891. 



Here may be noticed the skull of a short-tailed ram from the 

 Bahr-el-Ghazal, in the Eastern Sudan, presented by Capt. S. S. 

 Flower in 1904, which apparently indicates a breed allied to the 

 Hunia Sheep. 



c fk Af • '^^^^ breed appears to be originally a native of 



P^ h Id Sh ^^'^ Zululand, but at least half-a-dozen flocks are kept 

 eep. Ijj England. Frequently the rams have only one 

 pair of horns, and their colour is black, with the exception of the 

 face and the tip of the long tail, which are always white. In other 

 cases, as in the 8j)ecimens exhibited, the rams are four-horned, and 



