MARKHOR 



43 



neck, fairly long, hanging ears, and long flat horns, keeled in front and curving 

 outwards, backwards, and inwards. The hair of the Tibetan, or miscalled Kashmir, 

 goat is as celebrated as that of the Angora goat. The Syrian or mamber goat 

 has long, shaggy, silky black hair, a short beard, semicircular horns in both sexes, 

 and a strongly curved profile. In this breed the ears are longer than those of the 

 Egyptian goat, being 

 in fact so long as to 

 form its most distinc- 

 tive feature. 



Very 



Markhor. . . ™ , 



different 



from the wild goat and 

 ibex is the markhor 

 (0. falconeri), distin- 

 guished by its spiral 

 horns and the long hair 

 of the beard continu- 

 ing on to the shoulders. 

 There are several local 

 races of this tine goat, 

 distinguished, among 

 other characters, by 

 the shape of the horns, 

 which in some form 

 a close spiral like a 

 screw, while in others 

 the spiral is more open 

 and corkscrew - like. 

 They are compressed 

 and keeled both before 

 and behind, although 

 the hind keel tends to 

 become rounded in old 

 age. The range of the 

 markhor extends from 

 Bokhara, Cabul, and 

 the trans-Indus moun- 

 tains through Astor 

 and Hazara to the Pir 

 Panjal mountains of 

 Kashmir. The typical form is the Astor markhor, in which the horns make an 

 extremely open spiral. In the Pir Panjal race (C. falconeri cashmiriensis) the 

 spiral becomes closer ; and this closeness of the twist becomes more marked in the 

 Cabul race (C. falconeri megaceros). In the small Suleman, or straight-horned 

 race (C. falconeri jerdoni), the twist becomes like that of an ordinary screw. In 

 the Astor and Pir Panjal race the colour is reddish brown in summer and greyish 





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SULEMAN MARKHOR. 



