SHOOTING oris POLII ON THE PAMIRS. 61 



After keeping very quiet all day, about three or four o'clock they 

 go again to feed. Once I saw three males fighting on the way to the 

 grazing ground. They were butting each other exactly as sheep do, 

 and sometimes ran alongside each other striking sideways against the 

 ribs and flanks. The points of the horns being at right angles with 

 the line of the neck, they must hurt each other in this way much more 

 than when knocking their heads together. When engao-ed in such a 

 fight they utter a kind of low grunt, and the noise of the horns ao-ainst 

 each other can be heard a long way ofi^. They do not move about at 

 night except when disturbed. 



One has to be very cautious when watching Ovis polii as thev 

 have excellent sight and are wonderfully keen scented. If they see 

 anything they all stand looking at it, crowding against each other and 

 striking the ground with their fore feet, often coming some paces 

 nearer. All at once one bounds away, all the herd follows, and before 

 long all stop again and turn to look at what has disturbed them. 

 Then they start again and stop again, sometimes every two or three 

 hundred yards. Even after you have shot at them they behave in 

 this way, but if once they get scent of you they are. off directly 

 without stopping until they are a great distance. 



I saw once a herd going at full speed, and when I fired at them 

 from a ridge about 400 yards off they stopped at once. When the 

 bullet struck the ground on the further side of the herd, they all 

 started and went to look at the place where the bullet had struck. 

 Soon after they went off again, but they had not seen me. 



They nearly always resort to the same places and the same nullahs. 

 Big herds alwaj^s consist of females and young males. When about five 

 years old the males herd together in small numbers of two or three 

 sometimes more, but hardly ever exceeding eight or ten. Once onlv 

 I saw twenty-three. These herds of males spend the summer in the 

 highest and most remote nullahs, but in winter they come lower 

 down and many die of starvation in the spring, when, after a bad 

 winter the food runs short. One can see on the ground many heads 

 of old Ovis vv^hich died in the spring. In some places they are to be 

 seen by dozens, and by the more or less decayed condition of the horns 

 and skulls, one can guess how long they have been lying on the 

 ground. During the summer there is not a single big male to Ijc 



