CENTRAL ASIA 
to visit. Before we shift our ground, however, a word must be said on the 
vexed question of the varieties of sheep found over this area. Generally 
speaking, the sheep of the Tian Shan are a small race of Ovis poli , their 
territory adjoins, and until quite recently actually overlapped. For these 
sheep which range over the mountains between the Pamirs, the Ala 
Tau and Karlik Tagh — an immense area — many distinctions have been 
made and several names given. The story of the juggling of their respective 
names does not demand notice here; it is sufficient to record that the most 
recent decision is that the main Tian Shan is inhabited by the race called 
Ovis littledalei; these are the sheep which all hunters shoot in the Yulduz 
neighbourhood, but which they very naturally call Ovis karelini , for the 
great Russian naturalist who first named this sheep intended this name to 
apply to that particular variety. The Ovis littledalei are supposed to be 
typical of the Central and Western Tian Shan, while Ovis karelini is to be 
relegated to the Ala Tau mountain system. How far these two varieties 
mingle and overlap is a subject of much discussion. There are typical 
types of what Ovis karelini is described as to be obtained in the Karlik 
Tagh, nearly a thousand miles to the east of Ala Tau. They are also to be 
found in the region of the Narin and Ak-sai, five hundred miles to the 
south-west, a district which Severtzoff described as inhabited by Ovis poli , 
so alike are the sheep of that region to those of the Pamirs! Compare the 
two varieties of horns picked up on the Ak-sai plateau, figured opposite 
page 144. According to Severtzoff, they belong to Ovis karelini and 
Ovis poli , the ranges of which here overlap. The Ovis poli of the Tian 
Shan have now been defined as Ovis littledalei , otherwise the distinction 
holds good. On the Yulduz, the typical home of Ovis littledalei , the same 
mixture of types is to be found. But in the Ala Tau and the far eastern 
Tian Shan the typical Ovis karelini seems to predominate. When sheep 
range over immense areas of mountains it is difficult to draw a line of 
demarcation between their variations. It is simpler to place the Ovis 
karelini as typical of the most northern and eastern section of the ground, 
and Ovis littledalei at the opposite extremity, and to own that the two 
types overlap in the centre. 
As regards size and measurement, sheep horns of 50, 52, and 54 inches 
have been picked up in the Eastern Karlik Tagh, the very extremity 
of the range of the Tian Shan varieties. These were found by Sir 
Francis Younghusband in 1887. From more recent observations it is 
unlikely that such fine sheep are to be found there to-day. In the Upper 
143 
