Article XXV. A NEW SHEEP FROM KAMCHATKA. 

 By J. A. ALLEN. 



The Museum has recently received from Mr. George H. 

 Storck, a well-known fur-dealer and taxidermist of this city, 

 two fine skulls of sheep from Kamchatka, representing two 

 species, one being the Ovis nivicola and the other an appar- 

 ently undescribed species. Both were obtained in that coun- 

 try personally by Mr. Storck, and their history is thus beyond 

 question. The nivicola specimen was taken " between Milko 

 and Petropavlovsk in southeastern Kamchatka ' ' ; the other 

 "was taken about no versts east of Fort Tigil on the west 

 side of Kamchatka." Mr. Storck adds: " I have seen several 

 skulls up there, taken in that section, and they are all the 

 same, that is the horns are thin at the base and have a double 

 curve. . . . Specimens of this sheep are very hard to get, 

 as they are found only in the central range of mountains in 

 the northwestern portion of Kamchatka ; and it is the most 

 difficult place to travel in that I have ever faced, both on 

 account of the roughness of the country and the almost con- 

 stant storms that rage all through the winter, which is prac- 

 tically the only season when one can travel in the interior." 



The Fort Tigil specimen is strikingly different from any pre- 

 viously described species, having somewhat the type of horns 

 of Ovis ammon, but it is much smaller than 'any of the known 

 forms of the O. ammon group. It may well bear the name 

 of its discoverer and be called 



Ovis storcki, sp. nov. 



Type, No. 22689, an ld male skull, from the mountains about 75 

 miles east of Fort Tigil, Kamchatka; collected and presented by 

 George H. Storck, for whom the species is named. 



Horns a close spiral, forming a circle and a half, curving first out- 

 ward and downward, and then, at about the end of the first circle, 

 inward, upward, and finally outward again. The frontal surface is 

 finely ribbed transversely to the axis of curvature, with a sharp angle 

 at both edges, continued nearly to the tip; the exterior ('orbital') 

 and interior (' nuchal ') surfaces meet so as to form a broadly rounded 



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