274 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
may eventually prove to be a distinct species, or merely a permanent variety, no 
inconvenience can result from describing it, for the present, under a name already 
appropriated to it. In the Museum of the Linnean Society there is a good 
specimen of a sheep from the mountains of Nepaul, which does not appear to 
differ from the Siberian argali, but seems very distinct from the American one. _ 
DESCRIPTION. 
Size, much greater than the largest-sized varieties of the domestic sheep. Itis bigger than 
the argali. 
The horns of the male are very large, arise a short way above the eyes, and occupy alment 
the whole space between the ears, but do not touch each other at their bases. They curve 
first backwards, then downwards, forwards and upwards, until they form a complete turn, 
during the whole course of which they recede from the side of the head in a spiral manner, 
They diminish in size rapidly towards their points, which are turned upwards. At their bases, 
and for a considerable portion of their length, they are three-sided, the anterior or upper side 
being, as it were, thickened, and projecting obtusely at its union with the two others. ‘This 
side is marked by transverse furrows, which are less deep the further they are from the sculls 
and towards the tips the horns are rounded, and but obscurely wrinkled. ‘The furrows extend 
to the other two sides of the horn, but are there less distinct. The intervals of the furrows 
swell out, or are rounded, 
The horns of the female are much smaller, and nearly erect, having but.a slight curvature, 
and an inclination backwards and outwards. 
The ears are of a moderate size; the facial line straight, and the general form of the 
animal rather elegant, being intermediate betwixt that of the sheep and the stag. Tail very 
short. The hair is like that of the rein-deer, being, on its first growth in the autumn, short, 
fine, and flexible ; but, as the winter advances, becoming much coarser, dry, and brittle, though 
at the same time it feels soft to the touch. In the latter season the hair is so close at its 
roots, that it is necessarily erect. The legs are covered with shorter hairs, 
The head, buttocks, and posterior part of the belly, are white; the rest.of the body and the 
neck are of a pale umber or dusky wood-brown colour, A deeper and more shining brown 
prevails on the anterior aspect of the legs. The tail is dark-brown, and a narrow brown line, 
extending from its base, runs up betwixt the white buttocks, to unite with the brown colour of 
the back. The colours reside in the ends of the hair, and as these are rubbed off during the 
progress of the winter, the tints become paler. The old rams are almost totally white in the 
spring. This is the case with the male specimen in our plate. The female, in the back 
ground, presented the colours mentioned above. “Ory ine 
DiImENSIONS 
Of an Old Rocky-Mountain Ram, killed on the south branch of the Mackenzie, and now in the Zoological Museum, 
Feet. Inches. Feet. Inches-. 
Length of head and body . : . 6 0 Circumference of a horn at its base eee | 1 
Height at fore-shoulder A a 3 5 | Distance from the tip of one horn to the tip 
Length of tail J 0 2 of the other ° . . - 2 “3 
° one horn, mereees ee its ; f 
curvature . . ° 2 10 
