ZOOLOGICAL POSITION AND STRUCTURE 27 



Sheep are mainly an Old World group, of which 

 the headquarters would appear to have been Central 

 Asia, whence some of them made their way by way 

 of what is now Bering Strait, into North America, 

 where they range so far south as Mexico. One 

 wild species still inhabits Sardinia and Corsica, and 

 appears to have formerly enjoyed a more extensive 

 distribution in the south of Europe Another is 

 found in Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Persia, while 

 several are natives of the Himalaya and Central 

 and North-eastern Asia, including Kamchatka. 

 One of these Asiatic species extends into the Pun- 

 jab Salt Range, but none is known to the south- 

 ward of this, or in the countries to the east of 

 the Bay of Bengal. The only wild sheep inhabit- 

 ing Africa is the aberrant arui of the Atlas and 

 the desert from the south of Biskra in the west to 

 Kordofan in the east. 



Although essentially mountain-animals, sheep 

 in the wild state do not as a rule frequent such 

 rugged and precipitous ground as their near rela- 

 tives goats, but prefer more open country, their 

 largest representatives, the argalis of Central Asia, 

 being natives of the open rolling Pamirs, and the 

 somewhat similar country of the Altai, the Chang- 

 chemo district of Tibet, and parts of Mongolia, In 

 some of these districts wild sheep are found at very 

 great elevations. 



Although typical sheep differ markedly from 



