1841.] A Monograph of the species of Wild Sheep, 881 



slender tail of the present animal, and the very different texture of its 

 coat ; the absence of dark markings on its face and limbs may prove to 

 be an individual peculiarity. The specimen is of the size of a large 

 tame Sheep, and entirely of a chestnut-fulvous colour, dull white be- 

 neath and within the limbs, also on the lips, chin, lower part of the 

 cheeks, and at the tip of the tail. From nose to base of tail it mea- 

 sures about fifty inches, the tail half a foot, and height of the back 

 two feet and a half. From nose to rudiment of horn nine inches, and ears 

 four inches : the vestiges of horns, which exactly resemble those found 

 upon many breeds of tame Sheep, are two inches apart. Upon the 

 minutest examination of the specimen, I can perceive no character 

 whatever to separate it from the genuine Sheep, nor any distinction 

 more remarkable than the trivial circumstance of its chaffron not 

 being bombed, as usual, which however is equally the case with O. 

 Tragelaphus. I have been favoured, however, by Colonel Hamilton 

 Smith, with a drawing of an animal observed by himself on the banks 

 of the Rio St. Juan in Venezuela, which appears to accord so nearly 

 with Ixalus Prohaton, except in the particular of bearing horns 

 similar to those of the Rocky Mountain Goat, that its absolute inden- 

 tity is probable, in which case it would be curious that a species so 

 very nearly allied to the genus Ovis, should yet differ from it so con- 

 siderably in the character specified. The South American animal 

 adverted to, is the Aploceros Mazama of Colonel Smith, and is pro- 

 bably congeneric with the Pudu of the Chilian Andes, mentioned by 

 Molina, (the existence of which would appear to have been lately 

 re-ascertained by M. Gay,) and also with the fossil Antilope Maqui- 

 nensis of Dr. Lund : there would indeed appear to be other living 

 species of this type, more or less distinctly indicated by different 

 authors. 



14. O. Aries, Linnaeus, the Domestic Sheep. — Assuming that differ- 

 ent species have commingled to produce this animal, as appears to be 

 very evident in the instance of the Dog, it is still remarkable that we 

 have certainly not yet discovered the principal wild type, nor indeed 

 any species with so long a tail as in many of the domestic breeds, 

 which I cannot doubt existed also in their aboriginal progenitors : 

 nothing analogous is observable among the endlessly diversified races of 

 the Domestic Goat, which all appear to have been derived exclusively 



