OF INDIAN BIG GAME 5 



B.— Assam Dun Buffalo. 



Bos bubalis fulvus. 



Bos bubalis var. fulvus, Blanford, Fauna Brit. India, Mamm. 



p. 492, 1891. 

 Bos bubalis fulvus, Lydehher, Wild Oxen, Sheep, and Goats, p. 126, 



1898 ; Game Animals of India, etc. p. 88, 1907. 



As one of the two type specimens was presented to the 

 Museum by Mr. Hume in 1891, this race is included in the 

 present Catalogue. It was described by Dr. Blanford as 

 follows: — "There is a very distinct race of a dun colour that 

 inhabits Upper Assam. I have seen two heads of bulls, one 

 in Mr. Hume's collection, now in the British Museum, the 

 other in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. These differ (from 

 the normal form) in the much more convex forehead, and 

 the skull is remarkably short in front of the orbits, the 

 nasals being shorter than the distance from their posterior 

 end to the vertex, whilst in ordinary buffaloes they are 

 larger." This communicates a concavity to the profile, which, 

 together with the shortness of the preorbital region, recalls 

 to some extent the skulls of African buffaloes {B. caffer). 



91.8.7.215. Skull and horns. Co-type. Mishmi Hills. 



THE ARGALI. 



OVIS AMMON. 



Capra ammon, Linn., Syst. Nat. ed. 10, vol. i, p. 70, 1758, ed. 12, 



vol. i, p. 97, 1766. 

 Ovis ammon, Erxleben, Syst. Nat, Mamm. p. 250, 1777; Ward, 



Records of Big Game, ed. 6, p. 398, 1910; LydeTcker, The Sheeny 



and Its Cousins, p. 1:68, 1912. 



All the big wild sheep of Central Asia allied to the 

 argali of the Altai are best regarded as local races of that 

 species ; an almost complete gradation connecting the 

 massive, closely curved horns of the typical argali with the 

 lighter and more open type characterising those of the 

 Pamir argali. 



