70 



full-grown, or nearly so,) 20 inches over the curvature, 10 round at 

 base, 4 deep at base inside, their widest portion 2 feet apart, and 

 tips 21 inches, with a span of 13^ inches from base to tip inside; 

 their colour pale. Around the eye and muzzle this species is whi- 

 tish ; the chaffron and front of the limbs are more or less tinged with 

 dusky, and its coat is rather harsh, and fades considerably in bright- 

 ness before it is shed. Female generally similar, but smaller, with 

 no black down the front of the neck, and in the observed instances 

 hornless. The lengthened black hair of the male is only 1 inch long, 

 and that composing the tuft on the fore-limbs is so disposed that 

 the latter is white in the centre, flanked with blackish. 



" According to M. Gmelin, this species is found only on the 

 highest mountains of Persia. Its rutting season takes place in Sep- 

 tember, and lasts a month ; and the female yeans in March, pro- 

 ducing two or three lambs at a time : the males, he informs us, are 

 very quarrelsome amongst each other, insomuch that he had been at 

 one place where the ground was completely strewed with horns that 

 had been knocked off in their contests ; so that if any variation in 

 the flexure of these horns had been observable, this industrious na- 

 turalist would doubtless have remarked it. Sir John McNeill in- 

 formed me that ' it appears to be the common species of the moun- 

 tains of Armenia ; occurring hkewise on the north-west of Persia ;* 

 but the wild sheep of the central parts of Persia is evidently distinct, 

 ' having horns much more resembling those of the domestic Ram, 

 being spiral, and completing more than one spiral circle. I think I 

 am not mistaken in supposing,' continues Sir John, ' that I have also 

 had females of this species brought to me by the huntsmen with 

 small horns, resembling those of the ewes of some of our domestic 

 sheep ; but, on reflection, I find that I cannot assert this positively, 

 though I retain the general impression.' It is highly probable that 

 a wild type of 0. ^rics is here adverted to, which would thus in- 

 habit the same ranges of mountains as the wild common Goat (C. 

 ^gagrus) ; and with respect to the circumstance of horns in the female 

 sex, I may here remark that this character is very apt to be incon- 

 stant throughout the present group. It has already been noticed in 

 the instance of 0. Nahoor ; and the elder Gmelin states that the fe- 

 males of 0. Ammon are sometimes hornless, while those of the Cor- 

 sican 0. Musimon are generally so. The same likewise happens in 

 different species of wild Goats, in the Goral of India, and in the 

 prong-horned animal of North America ; and even in the Gazelles, 

 and other ovine-nosed species of what are commonly confused toge- 

 ther under the name of Antelope, there have been instances of horn- 

 less males as well as females. A male Springbok of this description, 

 as I am informed by Col. Hamilton Smith, was long in the possession 

 of the Empress Josephine ; and the specimen of Ixalus Probaton, 

 Ogilby, in the museum of this Society, doubtless affords another ex- 

 ample of tlie same phenomenon. 



" 10. O. Vignei, nobis : the Shii (not Sna) of Little Thibet, and 

 Koch of the Sulimaui range between India and Khorassan. This 

 fine species is closely allied to the Corsican Moufl3on, but is much 



