144 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



a big rock not ten yards away. He had his ears cocked 

 as if listening, and was looking away. The rifle was soon 

 bearing upon the back of his head, and the bullet this 

 time did not strike the horn, but exactly in the centre 

 between where the horns grew. He seemed to fall over 

 the precipice, but was brought up by a big rock. There 

 he lay stone dead, never again to lead his pursuers across 

 the ridges and valleys of his native hills, a splendid 

 specimen of primeval wildness. Here lay the great 

 phantom sheep, the father of all mutton, the ancestor 

 of all the varied breeds of domestic sheep which the world 

 contains, tracked back after ages of domestication and 

 changes wrought by climate and conditions of pasture 

 to the original stock. As usual, domestication has vastly 

 deteriorated him as regards size and power of defence 

 against enemies. In comparative ease and safety, with 

 fewer enemies to run from, the domestic sheep has thick- 

 ened out from good pasture, and become shorter in the 

 leg, while his hair has changed to wool. 



The head of the nyang is unmistakably like the 

 Scotch homy. The coat is all hair on the surface, but 

 the wool is there in the form of pashm, a fluffy kind of 

 underwool which seems constant in all Tibet animals, to 

 protect them from the intense cold of winter. No sheep 

 with the open wool and weaker physique of the domestic 

 sorts could survive the hardships of this cHmate. That 

 the Ovis Ammon is the common sheep, and not a distinct 

 species, seems highly probable. The Rocky Mountain 

 sheep, which I have also seen in its native wilds and shot, 

 is apparently the same species, varied only as to size.* 

 The horns are mostly identical and the coat also. This 

 fine specimen weighed fully as much as a red deer stag, 



* Measurement of Ov!s A;n7non horns taken, the best of the bag : 

 girth at base 17^ inches ; length measured outside 42 i inches. 



