Armenian Sheep. 



Ovis Gmelini, Blyth, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1840, p. 69 and 78. 



The following account is given by Edward Blyth, Esq. : — 



" This species belongs to the Moufflon group, but is yet very different from the Moufflon Sheep of Corsica. 

 It is described and rudely figured in the Eeise durch Russland (vol. hi. p. 486, and Tab. lv.) of the younger 

 Gmelin; and the skull and horns, forwarded by that naturalist to St. Petersburgh, have been figured and 

 described by Pallas in his Spicilegia (Fasc. xii. p. 15, and Tab. v. fig. 1). Messrs. Brandt and Ratzeburg 

 erroneously identified it, at the suggestion of M. Lichtenstein, with the wild Cyprian species, the horns of 

 which have a nearly similar flexure. 



"According to M. Gmelin, this species is found only on the highest mountains of Persia. Its rutting 

 season takes place in September, and lasts a month; and the female yeans in March, producing two or three 

 lambs at a time. The males, he informs us, are very quarrelsome amongst each other ; insomuch that he had 

 been at one place where the ground was completely strewed with horns that had been knocked off in their 

 contests : so that if any variation in the flexure of these horns had been observable, this industrious naturalist 

 would doubtless have remarked it. Sir John M'Neill informed me that 'it appears to be the common S23ecies 

 of the mountains of Armenia, occurring likewise on the north-west of Persia ; ' but the wild sheep of the central 

 parts of Persia is evidently distinct, 'having horns much more resembling those of the domestic ram, being 

 spiral, and completing more than one spiral circle. I think I am not mistaken in supposing,' continues Sir John, 

 'that I have also had females of this species brought to me by the huntsmen with small horns, resembling those 

 of the ewes of some of our domestic sheep ; but, on reflection, I find that I cannot assert this positively, though 

 I retain the general impression.' It is highly probable that a wild type of 0. Aries is here adverted to, which 

 would thus inhabit the same ranges of mountains as the wild common goat ( C. JEgagrus) ; and, with respect to 

 the circumstance of horns in the female sex, I may here remark that this character is very apt to be inconstant 

 throughout the present group. It has already been noticed, in the instance of 0. Nahoor; and the elder 

 Gmelin states that the females of 0. Ammon are sometimes hornless, while those of the Corsican 0. Musimon 

 are generally so. The same likewise happens in different species of wild goats, in the Goral of India, and 

 in the prong-horned animal of North America; and even in the gazelles, and other ovine-nosed species of 

 what are commonly confused together under the name of Antelope, there have been instances of hornless 

 males as well as females. 



" Fine specimens of the male, female, and young, received by this Society from Erzeroom, presented by 

 Dr. E. D. Dickson and H. J. Ross, Esq., Corr. Members, enable me to give the following description : — 



" Size of an ordinary tame sheep, with a remarkably short coat, of a livery chestnut-fulvous colour, deepest 

 upon the back : the limbs and under parts, whitish, with few traces of dark markings, except a finely contrasting 

 black line of more lengthened hair down the front of the neck of the male only, widening to a large patch on 

 the breast; and, in both sexes, a strip of somewhat lengthened mixed black and white hairs, above the mid 

 joint of the fore-limbs anteriorly, which corresponds to the tuft of 0. Tragelaphus: tail, small, and very 

 slender : horns of the male, subtrigonal, compressed, and very deep, with strongly marked angles and cross-strias, 

 diverging backwards, with a slight arcuation to near the tips, which incline inwards. As regards the flexure 

 alone, but not the character of the horn, which is allied to that of the common ram, this handsome species links 

 the Moufflon group with the Nahoor and Burrhel group. 



" Horns, about full-grown, or nearly so, twenty inches over the curvature, ten round at base, four deep at 

 base inside ; their widest portion two feet apart, and tips twenty-one inches, with a span of thirteen and a half 

 inches from base to tip inside; their colour, pale. Around the eye and muzzle, this species is whitish; the 

 chaffron and front of the limbs are more or less tinged with dusky ; and its coat is rather harsh, and fades 

 considerably in brightness before it is shed. Female, generally similar, but smaller, with no black down the 

 front of the neck, and in the observed instances hornless. The lengthened black hair of the male is only one 

 inch long; and that composing the tuffc on the fore-hmbs is so disposed that the latter is white in the centre, 

 flanked with blackish. 



"Length, nearly five feet, from nose to tail: the tail, four inches." 



