Ovis burrhel, Blyth, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1840, p. 67, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.
ser. 1, vol. vii. p. 248 (1841), Journ. As. Site. Bengal, vol. x. p. 868 (1841).
Ovis nahura, Gray, List Matnm. Brit. Mus. p. 170 (1843) > Jordon,
Mamm. India, p. 296 (1867) ; Blanford, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xli.
p. 40 (1872), Yarkand Miss.— Mamm. p. 85, pi. xiv. (1879), Fauna Brit.
India—Mamm. p. 499 (1891) ; Sterndale, Mamm. India, p. 438 (1884)
Ward, Records o f Big Game, p. 253 (1896).
Pseudois nahoor, Hodgson, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xv. p. 343 (1846),
xvi. p. 702 (1847) ; Horsfield, Cat. E . Ind. Mus. p. 176 (1851) ; Gray,
Knowsley Menagerie, p. 40 (1850), Cat. Ungulata Brit. Mus. p. 177 (1852),
Cat. Ruminants Brit. Mus. p. 133 (1872) ; Adams, Proc. Wool. Soc. 1858,
p. 5 2 7 ; Lydekker, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xlix. p. 13 1 (1880);
Prezewalski, Cat. Zool. Coll. p. 16 (1887) -
Musimon nahoor, Gervais, Hist. Nat. Mamm. volp|i. p. 19 1 (1855)-
Pseudois burrhel, Prezewalski, Cat. Zool. Coll. p. 16 (1887).
Pseudois nahura, Nathusius,'^/; Anzeigef, 1 888, p. 3 3 3 |Mangkavel,
Zool. Garten, vol. xxx. p. 298 (1889),
Plate X IX .
Characters. — Size medium, the height at the shoulder being about
3 feet. Head long and narrow ; hair of uniform length throughout, showing
no trace of either mane or ru ff; ears short; horns of adult males
rounded or subquadrangular at the base, nearly smooth, with the distinct
transverse wrinkles of the more typical sheep replaced by widely separated
sinuous lines of growth and also by fine stria;, arising close together, curving
outwards, at first upwards, then downwards, and finally backwards, so
that the tips, which are inclined inwards, are situated over the withers. In
females the horns are short, curved slightly upwards and outwards, and
suboval in section, with their longer diameter transverse to the head.
General colour of upper-parts brownish-gray, with a tinge of slaty-blue,
becoming browner in summer, and more distinctly slaty-gray, washed with
brown, in winter ; under-parts, inside and back of limbs, and buttocks as
far as the base of the tail white ; in adult rams the face, chest, a stripe down
the whole front of the legs except the knees, which are white, a band along the
lower part of the flanks bordering the white of the under-parts, and the terminal
two-thirds of the tail white. In the females the black markings on the
Fig. 44.—Head of male Bharal. (Rowland Ward, Records of Big Game.)
face, chest, and flanks wanting. Colour of horns blackish-olive. The
weight of a full-grown male bharal is about 130 pounds.
With regard to the systematic position of the bharal, Mr. Brian
Hodgson long ago pointed out that it differed from the more typical sheep
by the absence of face-glands and the pits for their reception in the skull ;
this being a feature in which it resembles the goats. He also pointed out
that the tail is more like that of a goat than of a sheep. In a paper communicated
to the Journal o f the Asiatic Society o f Bengal in 1880, I pointed
out other features in which the bharal differs from the typical sheep and
approximates to the goats.. It 88 there stated that an important caprine
feature is to be found in the form of the basioccipital bone, or that element
forming the hinder extremity of the base of the skull.
2 H