1847.] On the. tame Sheep, fyc. of Tibet. 1015 



and perfect males, and have found nothing to remark peculiar to the 

 females beyond the occasional absence of horns, a circumstance invari- 

 ably noticed in regard to the females ; though I may add, once for all, 

 that the females all exhibit the usual inferiority of size, and that their 

 chaffron is always straight, how much soever it be bombed in the males, 

 another indication, by the way, that the Roman nose is an adventitious, 

 not essential, character of the genus, Not so the eye and feet and 

 groin pits, which are organic and essential marks, and as such are uni- 

 versal, the Cagia not less than the others, tame and wild, male and 

 female, exhibiting them all conspicuously. In the same light must be 

 regarded the two teats, though this be a structural peculiarity of wider 

 prevalence and less invariability, serving to assemble into one group 

 (Capridse) the sheep of all sorts and the goats with many of the Ante- 

 lopes, yet disappearing in the Hemitrages in the Thars, Gorals, Chou- 

 singhas and others of the proper Antelopine family ;* and, what is very 

 remarkable, not absolutely constant even among the true and proper 

 sheep ; for I have more than once met with Cagias possessed of 4 teats. 



This, however, is a point that must be referred to the category of 

 "questions pour un ami" like the occasional 5 molars of the sheep; 

 and the general reader may rest secure that sheep-proper have 6 molars 

 aud 2 teats. 



The Cagia sheep ruts in spring and breeds in autumn, most of the 

 young being born at the close of the rains, but without absolute con- 

 stancy, for the domestic and artificial life of the Cagia leads to its often 

 breeding irregularly throughout the year, and sometimes even twice in 

 one year. One or two young are produced at a birth, and ordinarily in 

 autumn, instances of two parturitions in one year being most rare. I 

 have no memorandum of the intestines. The periods of maturity, 

 decline and death, show nothing calling for note. Having now des- 

 patched the several races of tame sheep of the mountains and of Tibet. 

 I might next describe with equal particularity the Tarai sheep, which 

 seems to be identical with that found all over Gangetic provinces, and 

 is characterised by medial size, black colour, a very coarse but true 

 fleece, frequent absence of horns in one or both sexes, a nose romanised 

 amply, very large drooping ears, and a long thick tail frequently pass- 

 ing into the monstrous Dmnba " bussel." But the extent to which 

 * See paper on the Ruminants, Journal Asiatic Society, above referred to. 



