ARGALI AND BIGHORNS 
quietly, as the nullah was a mass of broken rock and shingle, which kept 
clattering down however carefully one stepped. 
“T noticed that the wind had changed and was now blowing up the 
nullah towards us; and I wondered if the Kirghiz, who had been left near 
the entrance of the nullah, had had the sense to move further away, or if 
the guljar would get his wind. Sure enough, they had, as I saw them com- 
ing up the nullah towards us in a rare hurry. We squatted among the 
stones, and I saw that with any luck they must pass not more than a 
hundred yards away. I got the Mannlicher ready, and covered the whiter 
animal of the two. They came on at a gallop; but as the ascent began to 
tell on their heavy bodies they stopped opposite me for a moment. I 
dropped the big beast dead; the other one made off for the opposite side 
of the nullah; I missed him the second shot, and then putting up the 
200-yards sight, dropped him dead with the third shot. Mirza Bai was in 
a frantic state of delight, and, seizing my hand, kissed it vigorously, mur- 
muring, ‘Atcha, sahib!’ and many endearing epithets which I did not 
understand.” — Innermost Asia (New York, 1900). 
Inhabiting all these high ranges from Turkestan to Mongo- 
lia, is another magnificent sheep, the argali, ammon or nyan, 
which offers so many variations that it figures in 
books under many local and scientific names; but 
all varieties seem to blend, and it is not at all certain that it 
even differs specifically from the guljar. 
Last of the typical sheep are the various “bighorns,” if indeed 
more than one species locally diversified by climate and other 
circumstances can be counted; these are the Rocky see) 
Mountain, Alaskan, and Kamchatkan sheep. Our 
bighorn, which until about 1884 was considered as only a single 
species (Ovis montana), is the one long familiar to us through- 
out the Rocky Mountain region, from the head of the Rio 
Grande to central British Columbia, but not in California 
or Oregon. From central California southward into the 
lower peninsula is found Nelson’s sheep; and in the northerly 
sierras of Mexico a Mexican species. Now to the northward 
of the bighorn range occur three kinds of mountain sheep, 
255 
Argali. 
