134 



THE WILD GOAT 



they call Bharal. I have never been able to procure the Bharal, alive or 

 stuffed : but I have obtained, occasionally, his horns, so justly celebrated 

 for their prodigious size. Six years ago, I had a pair which I could only 

 raise from the ground by a considerable effort. I mention this strong 

 distinctive feature of Argali, because it is one that is familiar to the 

 natives; who are thence unlikely to confound the species, so marked, with 

 another. Unluckily, Mdien I possessed the horns of the Bharal, I was too 

 incurious about such things to make any note upon them, ere I gave 

 them away : I am therefore unable to say whether the dry, stuffed, head 

 of a male wild sheep which I now have, and which professes to be that 

 of the Nat/aur, be essentially different in character from the JBharal of 

 the Nipalese, or, from Linne's Argali. Linne's specific character of Ovis 

 Ammon is " O. cornibus arcuatis, semi circulaiibus, subtus planiusculisJ'^ 

 Now, the horns M^hich I possess, and suppose to be those of the male 

 Nat/aur, are directly the reverse of this ; for they present a sharp angle 

 below, and a broad flat surface above ; being in shape accurately trian- 

 gular ; with two sides of the triangle constituting the lateral surfaces of 

 the horns, and the third side, their frontal or superior, surface. Beneath, 

 there is merely the acute angle of the triangle. Besides, though the 

 animal which bore the horns in question died ere he had quite complet- 

 ed his second year, his horns, large as they are, could never, I think, 

 have reached, at maturity, the prodigious dimensions of those of the 

 Argali. In other respects, these horns answer sufficiently well to the 

 description of those of O. Argali, apud Shaw. — IL 379-80. 



Subjoined is a sketch of the Horns under discussion, attached to 

 the skull. 



After these remarks upon the supposed male of the species, I now 

 hasten to the account of the female. 



