over thirty rams and a lot of ewes—on a high shoulder opposite. After a while they lay down in a position where I could get within about 300 yards of the nearest. As the wind was, the only chance was to go up and either wait till they fed, or try to move them. The hunters seemed to intend the latter plan, but did not succeed. After a hard climb up over shaly slopes with larger sharp stones which were difficult to cross, I got in sight of the farthest-off sheep, about 400 yards; but I knew that others were nearer, and did not dare to go further to see. We waited about an hour or more, expecting the other man to give them his wind, when a small ram's head suddenly appeared within twenty yards. I knew he would put the rest away, so I ran in till I could see the rest. They were all going off fast, but luckily I got one fair ram singled out, and hit him through the heart at about 150 yards. I had several more running shots, but was rather flurried, and though I hit one I could see no blood afterwards. When we got to the shoulder where the sheep had gone over, I saw my ram lying dead, and also some more big rams climbing up the steep rocky shoulder far above me.
I was very pleased at getting my first Ovis aynmon. Though not a first- class one—forty-three inches round the curve—he was a great leggy, ugly beast, just getting rid of the last of his winter coat, and with very short scrubby hair. The feet and legs were very big and strong. The weight was about sixteen stone clean. It was all that the hunter and I could manage to drag him a few yards up to the top, and then we got him in a snow gully and slid him to where the horses could reach him. The men packed the head and part of the meat behind one saddle, and the best of the meat on the other horse, and rode them home with this additional load as a matter of course. My hunter’s grey pony was a wonder and showed more blood and shape than most of them. But the extraordinary thing was the way that the ponies’ feet stood the constant work over sharp stones and rocks, and the wonderful way in which they never seem to put their feet wrong on rocky or boggy ground.
Mr. Elwes published an elaborate paper On the Lepidoptera of the Altai Mountains in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London for 1889. In this he described 189 species, of which about thirty-nine are not found in Europe.
