| 1. Pig, or African deerlet. 2. Javan deerlet. 3. Roebuck. 4. Sheep. 5. Camel. |
[Wild Boar, No. 434].—A few days before leaving England, I called to say good-bye to an old friend well known in Calcutta and Lower Bengal, Dr. Charles Palmer. He asked me whether I had ever heard of a boar killing a tiger, and, on my answering in the affirmative, he told me he had just heard from his son, who had witnessed a fight between these two animals, in which the boar came off victorious, leaving his antagonist dead on the field.
[Ovis Polii, No. 438].—Mr. Carter in one of his letters to me says: "I see that you make the biggest horns of Ovis Polii 53 inches from tip to tip. In a photo of one brought down by the Yarkhand Expedition, which had a foot rule laid close, so as to scale it, the distance from tip to tip is nearly five feet."
I do not know which particular head is referred to, but two out of the three measurements given by me were of the finest heads brought down by the Expedition. There may have been a smaller pair with a wider spread, as the 73-inch horns I also mention, and which Sir Victor Brooke, to whom I sent a photograph, tells me is the finest head he has heard of, has only a spread of 48 inches.
[Ovis cycloceros, No. 443].—I gave from 25 to 30 inches as an average size for the horns of this species, but Captain W. Cotton, F.Z.S., writes to me that he sent home a pair of ovrial horns from Cabul, 35½ inches, and that there is a pair in the R.A. mess at Attock 38½ inches, but very thin. They were looted in the Jowaki campaign. This sheep has bred freely in the Zoological Society's Gardens, and two hybrids have been born there from a male of this species and the Corsican mouflon, Ovis musimon.
I mentioned that there is in the Gardens a specimen of Ovis Blanfordi. I see by the Society's list that this was presented by Captain Cotton; the habitat given is Afghanistan.