36 
THE SHEEP. 
This is a most natural group. Some zoologists have placed them in the same genus as the Goats, but they 
are easily characterized. 
They have a flat or concave forehead ; the horns more or less spiral, and wider than deep at the base, 
and are slightly annulated in front. The females are often hornless. The skull has a more or less deep 
rounded suborbital pit, without any fissure. The cutting teeth are nearly equal-sized and shelving, and there 
are no supplemental lobes to the grinders. The hoofs are triangular, and very shallow behind. They have 
distinct interdigital fossae. Their habits are very different; the males do not emit any stench. They 
bleat, and fight by butting. 
Blasius has remarked that the right horn of 0. argali, 0. montana, 0. Nahor, 0. Aries, 0. Musmon, and 
0. Vignei, wounds to the left, but in the two latter species only slightly ; while in 0. tragelapJius, 0. orien- 
talis, 0. Burrhel, and 0. Cyprius, the right horn wounds to the right. 
OVIS. 
The forehead is convex ; the horns are subtriangular, more or less spiral ; they have a more or less distinct 
tear-bag, and more or less deep suborbital pit in the skull, but no fissure ; the tail is generally short, 
or more or less elongated, but not tufted at the end. 
The Wild Sheep have a very short tail, and are covered with hair, often concealing a woolly undercoat. 
* Throat or sides with a dark streak ; tips of the horns bent inwards. Musimon. 
The Sha or Koch, Ovis Vignei. 
Horns. A conspicuous fringe of lengthened blackish hairs down the front of the neck ; rufous brown ; 
face livid ; lateral streak black ; rings on lower part of feet dark ; belly, ring above hoofs and 
back of the shanks white. 
Ovis Vignei, Blyth, P. Z. S. 1840, 70; Ann. N. H. vii. 251. t. 5. f. 9, hoYw^.— Wild Sheep of Hindu Koosh, 
Vigne, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng. 1840, 440.— Ot^i* Cycloceros, Hutton, in M'Clelland, Calcutta Journ. 
N. H. iii. t. 19.— Ray Soc. i. 64. 
Inhabits Little Thibet ; called Sha (not Sna) ; Sulimani Range, called Koch (Blyth); Affghans, called 
Koh-i'poombar. 
The size of a large Fallow Deer, and having the swiftness of that family. Horns like those of the 
Mouflon, but larger, 32i inches long and 1 1 inches round at the base. The suborbital pit in the skull is 
deep and rounded. 
The Armenian Sheep. Om Orientalis. 
Horns of male subtrigonal, compressed and very deep, with strongly marked angles and cross striae 
diverging backwards, with slight arcuations to near the tips, which incline inwards. Fulvous 
chestnut colour, darker on the back. Limbs and under parts whitish. Tuft of black and white 
hair above wrist. Male with a dark line of more lengthened hair on front of neck, widens into a 
patch on the chest. 
Ovis Orientalis, Gmelin, Reise, Russland, iii. 486. t. 55.— Pallas, Spic. Zool. xii. 15. t. 6. f. 1, horns.— 
Gmelini, Blyth, Ann. N. H. vii. 250. t. 5. f. S.— Ovis Musimon, Brandt & Ratz. Zool. Med. 
