CHAPTER VIII 



BREEDS OF THE ASIATIC HIGHLANDS AND 

 CHINA 



Wild sheep, as mentioned in an earlier chapter, 

 are essentially mountain animals, and are especi- 

 ally numerous in species in the highlands of Central 

 Asia. It is therefore only natural to expect that 

 on the mountain ranges and plateaus of the heart 

 of the Asiatic continent we should meet with 

 domesticated breeds approaching much nearer to 

 the wild species of the same regions than do the 

 breeds of the plains of India and China. And, as 

 a matter of fact, this is really the case, the domesti- 

 cated sheep of Tibet, and apparently many other 

 parts of the Asiatic highlands, being short-tailed 

 and furnished with well-developed horns, while 

 those of the plains of India, and most, if not all, of 

 the sheep-breeding countries of the East, are either 

 of the fat-tailed or fat-rumped type, and not in- 

 frequently have the horns rudimentary or even 

 absent. 



Thanks to observations made and recorded 

 more than sixty years ago by Mr. Brian Hodgson, 

 sometime British Resident at the Court of Nepal, 



