58 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



a reward I soon afterwards sighted the eleven rams feedhig quietly 

 about 500 yards' distance. The ground was a long undulating slope 

 broken up by little ravines, and after creeping along on all fours for 

 some time I saw the game 200 yards distant. At the first shot they 

 made a move and stopped, intently looking all around as if they did 

 not know where the danger was. My shot had been too high ; the 

 second shot too high again, and at once, all the herd made straight 

 for me. Unhappily they were following a little ravine, and as they 

 passed about 100 yards under where I stood, I could see only the tops 

 of their backs. Two more shots missed. I saw that if I were on a 

 ridge about 180 or 200 feet higher, I should possibly see them in a 

 nullah they were just entering, so I ran my best and reached the top 

 to see all the brutes in single file going up, under my feet, about 

 eighty yards off. But I was breathless ; running up-hill at 15,000 feet 

 is not easy for a man, hardly for an Ovis poUL My heart was beating 

 frantically and my hand was anything but steady. I tried to rest my 

 hand on the ground and fired. The first shot missed, but the second 

 rolled over an Ovis : the third missed, but the fourth killed one more. 

 I tried two more shots, about 150 or 180 yards distant, but only 

 wounded another, and there I was half fainting without any more 

 cartridges. For about half-an~hour I was unable to move, so ex- 

 hausted was I after such exertion. Eventually I got back to camp 

 with two good heads thinking I had done very badly. 



It is by no means an uncommon occurrence for game when misled 

 by an echo, or by the bullet striking against stones near them, to make 

 straight for the spot whence the shot is fired ; especially is this the 

 case with mountain game. 



On one occasion I was shooting at two young males and fired four 

 times at the bigger of the two. At each shot I saw that the bullet 

 struck the ground just l)ehind the brute, but he kept on running a 

 few steps up and then dovvn-hill, looking in every direction, evidently 

 not knowing what to do or where to go. 



I need not narrate all my adventures with Ovis poliiy but it may 

 interest sportsmen to know which places I found the best. 



On the west of the Kara Kul lake and south of Kaufman there are Ovis 

 and sometimes in greatherds. Over the great Kara Kul, at the Akdjilga 

 sources, I saw one herd of females and young ones numbering about 120. 



