"Ovis Ammon shooting requires a great deal of patience. In the first place, unless the sportsman has very good information regarding the ground, he may wander for days before he discovers the haunts of the old rams; and, secondly, he may find them on ground where it is hopeless to approach them. In the latter case all that can be done is to wait, watch them until they move to better ground, and if they will not do this the same day, they must be left till the next. Sooner or later they will move to ground where they can be stalked, and then, if proper care is exercised, they are not much more difficult to get near than other animals; but the greatest precautions must be taken to prevent being seen before one fires. Some men may think this sort of shooting too troublesome, and resort to driving, but this is very uncertain work, and frightens the animals away, when, by the exercise of patience, a quiet shot might be obtained."
A writer in The Asian, whose 'Sportsman's Guide to Kashmir and Ladakh' contains most valuable information, writes thus in the issue of August 30, 1881, of the keen sense of smell possessed by this animal, and I take the liberty of quoting a paragraph:—
"The Ovis Ammon is possessed of the sense of smell to a remarkable degree, and, as every one who has stalked in Ladakh is aware, the wind is treacherous. If the stalker feels a puff of wind on his back when within 700 or 800 yards of the game, he well knows that it is 'all up.' On the tops of the mountains and in the vicinity of glaciers these puffs of wind are of frequent occurrence; often they will only last for a few seconds, but that is sufficiently long to ruin the chance of getting a shot at the Ovis. Except for this one fact, we cannot admit that the nyan is harder to approach than any other hill sheep."
[NO. 440. OVIS KARELINI.]
Karelin's Wild Sheep.
NATIVE NAMES.—Ar or Ghúljar (male), Arka (female), Khirghiz; Kúlja, Turki of Kashgar.
HABITAT.—Mountains north-west of Kashgar, and thence northwards beyond the Thian Shan mountains on to the Semiretchinsk Altai.
| Horns of Ovis Karelini. |
DESCRIPTION (by Sir Victor Brooke and Mr. Brooke, translated and abstracted from Severtzoff, see 'P. Z. S.' 1875, p. 512).—"The horns are moderately thick, with rather rounded edges; frontal surface very prominent, orbital surface rather flat, narrowing only in the last third of its length. The horns are three times as long as the skull. The basal and terminal axis of the horns rise parallel with each other; the median axis parallel with the axis of the skull. The neck is covered by a white mane, shaded with greyish-brown. The light brown of the back and sides is separated from the yellowish-white of the belly by a wide dark line. The light brown of the upper parts gets gradually lighter towards the tail, where it becomes greyish-white, but does not form a sharply marked anal disc. On the back there is a sharply marked dark line running from the shoulders to the loins. I did not find any soft hair under the long winter hair in October."
SIZE.—Height at the shoulder, 3 feet 6 inches; length of the horns, from 44 to 45 inches.