376 ME. E. T. gUkthee on the 



If the specific limits of the Asiatic Mouflon (Ovis orientalis 

 s. gmelini) be so far extended as to include the Cyprian 

 Mouflon*, our sheep should be named Ovis orientalis, var. 

 urmiana; but in the present very fragmentary state of our know- 

 ledge of the wild sheep of Western Asia, I think it best to 

 associate it with the Cyprian Mouflon, to which it seems to be 

 more closely allied than to any of the other forms from Asia 

 Minor. 



The PLiocEisrE Mammalia op the Boiste-eeds oe Maeagha. 

 By RoBEET T. Gunther, M.A. 



On arriving at Maragha my first enquiries were about the 

 fossil bones found in the neighbourhood. I stayed at the house of 

 Quasha Mushi, a Christian preacher, who informed me that he had 

 already excavated aud despatched 14 loads of Mammalian bones 

 and two boxes of other stones (? Jurassic fossils) to Dr. Pohlig at 

 Vienna. He also told me that his palseontological researches 

 had been stopped by a suspicious government who believed that 

 all digging was for hidden treasure, and therefore was an illicit 

 interference with the rights of the mineral monopolists. 



On Sept. 5th I started soon after sunrise on a three-hours' 

 ride to Kirjawa, the village nearest the bone-beds. The road 

 from Maragha crossed a succession of gravelly hills largely com- 

 j)osed of pebbles of andesites of varying basicity, from hornblende- 

 andesite to basalt, which shortly before Kirjawa are succeeded by 

 hills of pumiceous tufa. Mr. Prior, who has been kind enough 

 to examine my specimens, assures me that this volcanic deposit 

 is remarkably similar to the tufa of the bone-beds at Samos of 

 similar age. 



During the day the villagers and myself were able to pick up 

 the bones in the following list. In their identification I have 

 been greatly helped by the experience of Dr. C. I. Forsyth Major, 

 who has recently studied the contemporaneous fauna of Samos. 

 I am glad to take this opportunity of thanking him for the kind 

 way in which he interrupted his other researches to help on mine. 

 The species in italics have been described from Maragha by other 

 palaeontologists t. 



* A view taken by Lydekter in ' Wild Oxen, Sheep, and Groats.' 



t Cf, Forsyth Major, 'Le Gisement ossifere de Mitylini.' Lausanne, 1894. 



