274 THE SHEEP AND ITS COUSINS 



the skull of a wild sheep obtained to the east of 

 Fort Tigil, on the western side of Kamchatka, as a 

 new species, under the name of Ovis storcki. He 

 refers to it as having horns of the amnion type, but 

 of much smaller size than those of any member of 

 the group then known to him, and describes it as 

 follows : — 



" Horns a close spiral, forming a circle and a 

 half, curving at first outward and downward, and 

 finally upward again. The frontal surface is finely 

 ribbed transversely to the axis of curvature, with a 

 sharp angle at both edges, continued nearly to the 

 tip ; the exterior (' orbital ') and interior (' nuchal ') 

 surfaces meet so as to form a broadly rounded 

 ' nuchal edge,' very broad basally, but becoming 

 thinner and sharper apically. The spiral is very 

 close ; at the end of the first circle the horns 

 approach the face just in front of the orbits, so 

 nearly as to be distant from the facial portion of 

 the skull by only a space equal to the anteorbital 

 breadth of the skull [this being what I call the 

 ' nipping-in ' of the typical amnion], and then 

 sweep abruptly outward. The form of the spiral 

 is thus similar to that seen in O. ammon." 



The horns measure 40 inches in length, with a 

 basal girth of 1 1 J, and a tip-to-tip interval of 23I 

 inches. 



Following the classification adopted here, this 

 sheep must be ranked as a small race of the argali, 



