THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
from the Oxus to the lower Zarafschan. The natives speak of them, and I 
am certain I heard one one night in the saxaul forests which surround the 
swamps where the river loses itself in the sands, and where large numbers 
of wild pig roam. 
The prize which Eastern Bokhara holds out to the lucky sportsman 
who gets there, is a markhor of doubtless new variety which inhabits the 
right bank of the Oxus in the district of Baljuan. Mr W. R. Rickmers, 
who has proved its existence, says that it seems to prefer the low rough 
country on the edge of high mountains instead of the inaccessible heights 
of the giant ranges of Darwaz. 
The only other hill game is a wild sheep which is restricted to the most 
outlying desert hills of this mountain world. It is strange that one has to 
pass over wild mountain country to find it destitute of game, except a few 
ibex; and then to discover that the low spurs, without much grazing 
and offering rather cramped surrounds, are the home of an exceedingly 
beautiful little wild sheep. But such is the case. On the Nurata Dagh, an 
almost isolated ridge, which runs out into the Bokharan desert of Kara 
Kum to the north-west of Samarkand, I found a sheep which I concluded 
must be identical with a similar type discovered by Severtzoff in the Kara 
Tau, another more or less desert range, 200 miles to the north. This sheep 
he called Ovis nigrimontana, and we only knew of it from his description. 
Recently, however, additional material has enabled Russian zoologists 
to draw a distinction between the sheep of the Kara Tau, and my Bokharian 
specimens. Whereas the true Ovis nigrimontana approximates to the 
“argali” type, my sheep — of smaller size and with bigger neck ruff — 
approaches the urial type. It might be said to connect the Ovis vignei arkal 
of Northern Persia with the larger “ argali ” types of Central Asia. It is 
a small sheep with a 4-inch long neck ruff and a comparatively big horn 
measurement, my best head measuring 35f inches in length, 10£ inches 
in girth and with a 24-inch span. 
Both the Kara Tau and the Nurata Dagh are easily reached from the 
railway. The former range runs parallel to the Orenburg -Tashkent line, 
about fifty miles away from it. Severtzoff describes it as a rugged locality, 
with fine grass -covered uplands and meadows above the ravines and 
precipices; there are also larch, apple and ash groves. The sheep inhabit 
the highest crags and the lowest foothills, after the habit of all wild sheep 
which live at a comparatively low altitude. Like the mouflon of Asia Minor, 
they are to be found on hills only a few hundred feet above the surrounding 
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