BREEDS OF ASIATIC HIGHLANDS 159 



occasionally be a portion of a second. In colour 

 the horns are normally brown ; they have the 

 front surface unusually broad, and both this and the 

 inner surface flattened, although the outer one is 

 slightly convex. Very characteristic is the high 

 convexity of the nose, or chaffron, and the very 

 small size of the ears, which have their summits 

 abruptly truncated, and are partially concealed by 

 the big horns. The fleece, which is long and 

 shaggy, is almost invariably white, although tan- 

 coloured or reddish faces and legs are by no 

 means uncommon, while wholly black individuals 

 are occasionally met with. Sometimes the ewes 

 are hornless. 



Although somewhat coarse, the long-stapled 

 wool of the Barwal is far superior in quality to 

 that of any of the sheep raised in the plains of 

 India, and supplies most of the Buddhist tribes 

 of the eastern sub- Himalaya with woollen materials. 

 The Barwal, of which some fine skulls and horns, 

 presented by Brian Hodgson, are exhibited in the 

 Natural History branch of the British Museum, 

 is essentially a fighting sheep, rams being exported 

 to the Punjab and other parts of India for the 

 purpose of combat, either with their own fellows 

 or with other animals. 



Some of these fighting rams, like one presented 

 to the British Museum by the Gaekwar of Baroda, 

 would appear, however, to be half-breeds between 



