1004 On the tame Sheep, fyc. of Tibet. [Oct. 



a similar account of the large horned cattle or Bovines, that is, the 

 tame Oxen, Buffaloes and Bisons, reared between the Tarai or skirt of 

 the plains of India, and the trans-Himalayan plains of Tibet. 



I shall begin with the sheep, and, in order to mark more distinctly 

 the essential characters of each of the two groups to be now reviewed, 

 I shall commence, in regard to each, by setting down those characters 

 in the usual manner of Zoologists. 



The tame sheep of the world at large have been supposed to retain 

 so few of the original marks of their race, that it has been thought diffi- 

 cult or impossible to point out their wild progenitors. Perhaps a good 

 deal of this difficulty has arisen from the heretofore imperfect examina- 

 tion of the wild races, and from the manner in which the distinctive 

 characters of the whole of them have been lumped together to constitute 

 a single Genus Ovis. In a paper recently presented to the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal, I have distributed the wild sheep known to me into 

 three genera. And to that paper I beg to refer the curious reader, 

 merely observing on the present occasion, that the sheep proper, typed 

 by the wild Argalis of Siberia and of Tibet, exhibit the whole of the 

 following characters, which are likewise common to all the several 

 breeds of domesticated sheep now to be described, with the single and 

 but very partial exception of ' horned females,' some of the following 

 tame breeds having females, sometimes void of horns. 



Genus Ovis. 



Sheep-proper. 



Horns in both sexes. 



No mufle. 



Eye pits large, but immoveable. 



Feet pits small in all the four feet. 



Inguinal glands large, with a copious secretion, but 

 vaguely defined pit or vent. 



Calcic glands or tufts, none.* 



Teats two. 



No odour in the males. 

 These animals have, for further and subordinate marks, massive an- 

 gular compressed and heavily wrinkled horns, inserted proximately on 

 the top of the head, and turned sideways almost into a perfect circle, 

 * For these organs sec Journal Asiatic Society, above referred to. 



