ORDliR RUMINANTIA. 319 



t>ase, and the pair covering the sides of the head from near 

 the eyes to the occiput, touching at the top of the forehead. 

 This structure lengthens the head, raising the forehead 

 high between them, and depressing its articulation below 

 the orbits: their triangular characters is almost effaced by 

 the arching of the sides. In old specimens the wrinkles 

 are not very prominent, and the tips are commonly broken 

 off. The face and mouth is white; the cheeks, neck, 

 back, and limbs, dun rufous-gray ; the tail, about five inches 

 long, together with the buttocks and part of the croup, is 

 enclosed in a disk of whitish-buff; the eyes are pale bluish- 

 gray, and there is no appearance of a lax skin or longer 

 hair beneath the throat. The females are smaller, and 

 have similar horns to those of Asia. 



In their manners they resemble the 0. Ammon, living in 

 troops of thirty to forty, headed by an old ram, bounding 

 vigorously along the steepest ridges, and occasionally de- 

 scending on the plain, particularly during the severest 

 winter days. If the American species be the same as the 

 Asiatic, which appears very probable, it can have reached 

 the New World only over the ice by Eehring's Straits; and 

 the passage may be conjectured as comparatively of a re- 

 cent date, since the Argali has not spread eastward beyond 

 the Rocky Mountains, nor to the south, further than 

 California. 



The Bearded Argali. (0. Tragelaphus.) Africa has its 

 Argali, and in all likelihood more than one variety of the 

 species ; for it does not appear that the specimen described 

 by Dr. Caius, and that discovered by M. GeoffYoy St. 

 Hilaire in the mountains of Egypt, can be viewed other- 

 wise than as varieties of the same species ; that figured 

 by Mr. Pennant may be altogether distinct. 



The Tragelaphus, described by Caius about 156.1, 

 brought from the mountains of Mauritania, Morocco? was 

 larger than a fallow-deer, or nearly equal to a stag, being 

 three feet six inches at the shoulder, and four feet six 



