DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31772#0226
1G0
TRAVELS m TUEKISTAN.
pair of Oms poli liorns, measuring sixty-five and a half inches
in length rouncl the curve, fifty-three inches in a straight line
from tip to tip, and sixteen inches round the base. I presented
this magnificent liead to the British Museum, where it is now to
be seen. This large head was exhibited at a meeting of the
Zoological Society in London on the 15th of June last by Mr.
Edwin Ward, F.Z.S., of Wigmore Street, to whose care I had
sent it from India. There was read on that occasion a paper by
Sir Yictor Brooke on the wild sheep of the Tian Shan and other
Asiatic Argali, and reference was made in it to certain points of
clistinction between the large wild sheep of the Tian Shan and
the Pamirs, observed by Captain Biddulph, and also to the state-
ments of the Bussian naturalist and traveller, M. Severtzoff,
from which it appearecl that the Tian Shan species is, in every
respect, smaller than that which frequents the Pamirs. The
ibex are similar to the Himmalayan species, and accord-
ingly differ from those we saw in the Tian Shan range,
which were of the black kincl, also found in the Kuen Luen.
I had the hounds presented by Ali Murdan Shah tried after
ibex on the Great Pamir, but tliough they went eagerly and
well after the game, they failed to drive them to the selected
rocks, and no opportunity of a shot was given.
We experienced none of the symptoms of great heiglit, viz.
headache and difficulty of respiration, on the Pamirs, in the
exaggerated degree that native travellers havc described. None
of our camp followers or people suffered in any unusual way,
beyond becoming breathless when exertion was made. All were
free from severe headaclie except our mess butler, wlio was quite
like a mountain barometer in indicating a lieight of 12,000
feet, as he invariably then became a victim. There was perfect
TRAVELS m TUEKISTAN.
pair of Oms poli liorns, measuring sixty-five and a half inches
in length rouncl the curve, fifty-three inches in a straight line
from tip to tip, and sixteen inches round the base. I presented
this magnificent liead to the British Museum, where it is now to
be seen. This large head was exhibited at a meeting of the
Zoological Society in London on the 15th of June last by Mr.
Edwin Ward, F.Z.S., of Wigmore Street, to whose care I had
sent it from India. There was read on that occasion a paper by
Sir Yictor Brooke on the wild sheep of the Tian Shan and other
Asiatic Argali, and reference was made in it to certain points of
clistinction between the large wild sheep of the Tian Shan and
the Pamirs, observed by Captain Biddulph, and also to the state-
ments of the Bussian naturalist and traveller, M. Severtzoff,
from which it appearecl that the Tian Shan species is, in every
respect, smaller than that which frequents the Pamirs. The
ibex are similar to the Himmalayan species, and accord-
ingly differ from those we saw in the Tian Shan range,
which were of the black kincl, also found in the Kuen Luen.
I had the hounds presented by Ali Murdan Shah tried after
ibex on the Great Pamir, but tliough they went eagerly and
well after the game, they failed to drive them to the selected
rocks, and no opportunity of a shot was given.
We experienced none of the symptoms of great heiglit, viz.
headache and difficulty of respiration, on the Pamirs, in the
exaggerated degree that native travellers havc described. None
of our camp followers or people suffered in any unusual way,
beyond becoming breathless when exertion was made. All were
free from severe headaclie except our mess butler, wlio was quite
like a mountain barometer in indicating a lieight of 12,000
feet, as he invariably then became a victim. There was perfect