Identifier: calcuttajournalo02mccl (find matches)
Title: Calcutta journal of natural history, and miscellany of the arts and sciences in India
Year: 1840 (1840s)
Authors: McClelland, John, d. 1883
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: Calcutta, Bishop's College Press
Contributing Library: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
, and tapering;whereas the domestic breed is a variety of the well-known Ovis steatopyga whose tails often attain to such a size asto impede the animals motions, and are so broad as to coverthe whole of the rump as far down as the houghs; and in-deed it is said, that in some parts of the country, they ac-tually reach the ground, and are supported on wheeled trucksto enable the animal to move about. It is evident then from this characteristic alone, that theBearded Sheep has not in any way contributed to form thedomestic stock of the Afghans; for if Pallas be right inattributing the enlargements of the tail to the peculiarities,of pasture, why has it not had the same effects upon thewild, as upon the domestic race ? Pasture, however much itmight influence the secretion of fat, could never lengthenan animals tail by several vertebra, which if the domesticbreed has sprung from the wild one, it must have done inthe present instance. There are other marked distinctions, however, which will
Text Appearing After Image:
Wild Goat of Afghanistan. 521 be at once apparent, on comparing the skulls of the twospecies ; in the Ovis steatopyga, the horns have the anteriorsurface rounded, instead of flat; they are spiral from thevery base; only semi-triangular, and with the superior edgerounded and folding over; the space between the orbits isone-fourth greater, and the chaffron is strongly arched, allof which characters are wanting in the wild race. Borz of the Afghans—Wild Goat of Afghanistan, The Paseng of Authors. By Captain Hutton. Capra .^Egagrus, Pallas. Plate xix. This noble animal is an inhabitant of the mountain dis-tricts of Afghanistan, especially among the lofty crags of theSoolimaun and Pisheen Hills, where it chooses the most in-accessible place for its haunts. It is, however, likewise foundin other places of considerable elevation, and may be said torange more or less abundantly over the greater part of Af-ghanistan and Persia. The height of a full grown individual living in my pos-session a

Note About Images