1896.] MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON OVIS AMMON. 787 
Mr. W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., exhibited, on behalf of Major C. 8. 
Cumberland, four heads of Ovis ammon (L.) from the North-west 
Altai, east of Semipalatinsk, in Central Asia (about lat. 50° N., 
long. 88° E.). Major Cumberland, during the summer of the 
present year, had succeeded in shooting seven fine rams, and the 
horns brought back by him far excelled any belonging to this species 
that had previously, so far as was known, been seen in this country. 
Of the largest pair, which had been presented by Major Cumberland 
to the British Museum, each horn measured 184 inches in cir- 
cumference at the base, and 563 inches in length round the curve ; 
whilst the horns of another pair measured 193? inches round the 
base, though only 543 long. Evidently this animal exceeded the 
great Tibetan Sheep, 0. hodgsoni, in size, and was the largest of all 
living Sheep. 
Head of Ovis ammon, from Major Cumberland’s specimen in the 
British Museum. 
The heads now exhibited entirely confirmed the view that 
O. ammon must be regarded as a distinct species from O. hodgsont. 
As had been first pointed out by Sir Victor Brooke and Mr. Basil 
Brooke, in the ‘ Proceedings’ of the Society for 1875, pp. 518-520, 
the horns in 0. ammon were thicker and longer and curved much 
more outwards towards the ends, and were thus intermediate 
in curve between O. hodgsont and the form of O. poli called 
O. karelint by Severtzoff. O. ammon, moreover, wanted the ruff or 
lengthened hair on the sides and lower surface of the neck that is 
found, apparently at all seasons, in adult rams of O. hodgsont. 
The rams shot by Major Cumberland in summer were very pale- 
