112 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



the headskins, and packed them and the heads for their journey to 

 Mahdoo, the eminent taxidermist (or mochi) at Srinagar. 



May 13th. — - The evil destiny of the female sex, with the best 

 intentions in the world, to get their male relations into trouble, 

 could hardly be better illustrated than in the case of inarkhor. It 

 is the females who are always on the watch, while the males are 

 snugly asleep under some rock ; we see Sister Anne on her watch- 

 tower, and so discover the abode of old Blackbeard. To-day I have 

 been up to the highest crag over the Ramghat valley, climbing from 

 6 to 12 o'clock, and have only just found game. About a mile 

 below me, on the edge of the cliffs about the river, when we had 

 given it up as hopeless, and were planning to go after ibex to»morrow, 

 out walks a cautious female, looks round, skips up on a smooth 

 round rock, and settles herself to survey mankind from Astor to 

 Ramghat. Couched on the rock, she is watching the hillside closely, 

 but we have been watching longer than she, and her eyes won't light 

 on us just yet. Perhaps in the coming by-and-bye we may meet for 

 a brief ecstatic moment. Nothing to do now, but lie in a crevice of 

 the rocks from 12 till 4 or 5 o' clock, when the family will come out 

 to graze . . . Family dou't come out, so we call on them, and 

 find only one small (18") gentleman and three ladies at home. Sleep 

 under an overhanging rock comfortably enough. 



May 21st. — A long day's work. Started at daybreak across the 

 valley, descending to river, and finding a practicable path up the 

 opposite cliffs after several failures. Then struck along ledge of 

 cliffs about half a mile below the ibex, 31 in all, intending to have 

 a go at the markhor first. After climbing for 3| hours to the 

 shoulder where the markhor had shown themselves yesterday after- 

 noon, we sighted them about a mile below us in a steep ravine. It 

 was too far to go down again, so we went on for the ibex. The two 

 biggest bucks and two females were in a small ravine near us, say 

 600 yards off, and the rest of the herd were scattered about, some 

 lying down, some feeding, some skipping about and playfully butting 

 at one another. It was my first sight of ibex near at hand, and I 

 was surprised at their appearance, my idea of an ibex having been 

 based on the picture of a European ibex that (taken from the Old 

 Shekarry's Sport in many Lands and Cassell's Natural History) does 

 duty for Sibirica in Sterndale's Mammalia. Instead of an agile, 

 slender, gracefully- stepping - * creature, I found the buck ibex to be a 

 heavy yellowish brute with short brown legs, a very massive barrel- 



