1846] Rough Notes on the Zoology of Candahar. 153 



Journal of Nat. Hist.' The animal is abundant throughout the 

 higher mountains of Afghanistan and is said to extend into Persia. 47 



No. 46. Ovis steatopyga — Var. — " Doomba," or broad-tailed sheep. 



The domestic sheep of the Afghans are all Doombas or " broad-tails, 

 but the development of this singular feature is dependent apparently 

 upon climate and perhaps pasture, although certainly not to such an 

 extent as some have supposed : for instance, Pallas ascribes it to the 

 prevalence of wormwood in the pastures, but if such be the cause the 

 feature should become larger or smaller according as such pasture 

 abounded or decreased ; why then have the sheep around Shawl and 

 among the tribes which frequent the mountains of the Soolemaun range 

 a less development of fat than those sheep which are found around 

 Candahar, for wormwood and saline soils abound there ? why again 

 have the sheep of the Khyber Pass and Peshawur the broad tail, for 

 wormwood I am told does not occur there ? why have not the sheep of 

 Upper Kunawur and Hungrung in the Himalaya, the broad tail, for 

 wormwood abounds there, and forms one of the chief plants in the 

 pasture of those elevated tracts ? 



The " Broad-tailed Sheep," which is but a variety of the "Fat- 

 rumped" species, or " Ovis steatopyga" occurs throughout hill and vale, 

 extending into Bokhara, Persia and Palestine ; it occurs also with some 

 modification in Africa and elsewhere. If the prevalence of wormwood 

 and saline pastures had the effect of producing the broad fat tail of this 

 breed, so ought they to have enlarged the tail of the wild race (Ovis 

 VigneiJ, and the Camels and other cattle which feed upon the same 

 pastures ; yet such is not the case. 48 Again, if the fat is engendered 

 by such causes, it should disappear gradually when the exciting cause 

 had ceased to operate, and by removing the 0. steatopyga to pastures 

 where neither wormwood nor saline plants prevail, the singular enlarge- 



47. There is a brief notice and very passable figure of this species, taken from 

 an animal killed in the vicinity of Persepolis, in Lieut. Alexander's ' Travels from 

 India to England,' &c, p. 136 (1827): and I may take the present opportunity to 

 remark, that the Society is indebted to the obliging exertions of G. T. Lushington 

 Esq., of Almorah, for a noble specimen of the true Ovis ammon of Pallas, which is 

 quite distinct from O. montana of N. America, and to which must be referred my 

 O. Hodgsonii, founded on Mr. Hodgson's figure and description of the head and 

 horns of a young ram, since called by him O. ammonoides. — Cur. As. Soc. 



48. The fighting rams of India seem to me to be of a race descended from O.Vignei, 

 of which they preserve the crescent-horns and short tail.— Cur. As. Soc. 



