860 A Monograph of the species of Wild Sheep, [^No. 119. 



hitherto been published ; as its flexure, too, which suggested the appel- 

 lation of sculptorum, would appear to form a less extended spiral than 

 is perhaps normal, and the habitat of our present subject also proves to 

 be different from that rather suspected with instance of the other, 

 (namely, the Taurus,) I here propose to dedicate the present gigantic 

 animal to the illustrious Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century 

 by the name of Ovis Polii. 



As compared with the Rocky Mountain Sheep of North America, the 

 Rass or Roosh of Pamir differs in having the horns considerably less 

 massive, but more prolonged, approaching more in character to those of 

 the domestic O. Aries, but differing again from the latter, not only in 

 their very superior size, but in having their two front angles about 

 equally developed. As in the Rocky Mountain species, and I believe 

 also the O. Aries normally, the pair at first diverge backward, des- 

 cending to gyre round at a parallel with the axis of the body, and 

 inclining, as they again spire backwards, more outward to the tip. The 

 horns described were in their seventh year of growth, and measure 4 

 feet 8 inches in length, following the curvature, and 14|^ inches round 

 at base, having the tips, which are continued round till they point ob- 

 liquely backwards, 45 inches apart. The width of their upper plane is 

 31 inches at base, 2 J inches at the distance of one foot from the base, 

 and 21 inches at two feet distance from the base ; the depth of the base 

 inside is 5 inches, and distance apart of the pair, measured outside, 

 where they gyre forward at a parallel, 21 inches. The years of growth 

 are successively 151, 101, 13^ g^ 5^ 3^ and the last (incomplete) 1, in- 

 ches. The College of Surgeons' specimen, a single horn, was in its eighth 

 year of growth, but measures only 4 feet 4 inches round the curvature ; 

 its depth towards the base is 6 inches, and greatest width, about the 

 middle, 2 J inches. The successive annual growths are 121 9^ 8, 8, 7, 5, 

 3J, and the incipient eighth, 1 inch. It is curved in a spiral involu- 

 tion, and scarcely outwards for three-fifths of a circle, when it gradually 

 inclines more so to the tip, the horn describing one circle and about a 



not the Snd of Great Tibet, the latter being the O. Nahoor ; and Brdly, that 

 Lieut. Wood's *' Rass" refers to the Markbur, while the true Rasse, (Ovis Po- 

 lii,) the horns of which were transmitted by him to London, does not appear 

 to have been distinguished by him from the species which he rightly describes 

 under the denomination Kutchgar,—^. B. 



