360 



Further Notice of the Species of Wild Sheep. [April, 



6. O. nahoor, Hodgson. Described from specimens, amongst which 

 was a hornless female ; and first clearly established as distinct from O. 

 ammon /* 



7. O. burrhel, nobis. Described from a fine male j and the horn 

 of a still older one. It would seem, however, that I was wrong in 

 assigning to it a loftier altitude of haunt than that of O. nahoor. Capt. 

 Smith informs me that O. burrhel and O. nahoor keep always in sepa- 

 rate flocks, and are never seen on the same feeding-ground ; the Burrhel 

 seldom ascending above 16,000 feet elevation, while the Nahoor goes 

 much higher. Both bleat like domestic sheep. Near the Boorendu 

 Pass, the Burrhel is much more plentiful than the Nahoor ; but the 

 latter is far more extensively diffused over the Himalaya generally. At 

 the close of summer, when the snow is nearly melted away, a very 

 nutritious grass grows abundantly under a thin coating of snow, and 

 both species become exceedingly fat by feeding upon it, i. e. in the 

 months of August, September, and October. At this time they can 

 only be compared to the prize animals exhibited at the Smithfield 

 shows, and they run with considerable difficulty, though still being far 

 from easy of approach. In winter, when snowed in, they actually 

 browze the hair off each other's bellies, many together having retired 

 under the shelter of some overhanging rock, from which they come out 

 wretchedly poor. They produce one or two young, (commonly two,) in 

 June and July. In Taylor's plate, the representations of the horns of 

 these two species were unluckily transposed ; No. 6 referring to O. 

 burrhel, and No. 7 to O. nahoor. 



8. O. cylindricornis, nobis. This is the least satisfactorily esta- 

 blished of all the species in my monograph ; it resting on a communi- 

 cation from Col. Hamilton Smith, relative to a species which must 

 have been very different from either of those known to me, though 

 described from memory only by Col. H. Smith (one of the most ex^ 

 perienced of Zoologists in the history of the Ruminantia.) 



* I may therefore legitimately claim credit for being- the first to discriminate, in print, 

 not only the three Himalayan, but all the Asiatic species of wild Ovis known up to the 

 present time : unless O. nivicofa of Kamtschatka be considered an exception, though JM, 

 Eschacholtz does not explain in what respects this differs from 0. ammon and 0. montana ; 

 from the latter of which it would seem only to deviate in its inferior size, and in wanting 

 the pale caudal disk ? 



