SI 4 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



Bhotan. If the description be compared with some published plates 

 representing the full figure of the animal a useful object lesson may 

 be learnt regarding the futility of the efforts to depict the real appear- 

 ance of an animal from a flat or mounted skm. For instance in the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1853, pi. XXXVT, Wolf 

 represents a Takin as a noble looking beast, full of fire and spirit 

 with a magnificently carried head, while in quite a recent number 

 of the same periodical (1908, pi. XLIII), there is a figure of the 

 animal which politeness permits one to describe as a ludicrous 

 caricature. Very much better is Milne Edward's figure in his classic 

 work Recherchers des Memiferes, pi. 74. Indeed so good in the 

 main is this illustration that one cannot but surmise that it was taken 

 from a sketch of the living animal submitted by Pere David, its 

 discoverer, to the French zoologist. 



Young Takin sometimes diff'ers considerably from the adult in 

 colour. In the species described by Milne Edwards for example, 

 namely B. tihetanus, while the adult bull is mostly a golden yellow 

 and the cow grey, the young is fairly uniformly reddish brown, 

 the pale tint being gradually acquired with growth. The heavy thick 

 set build, however, is as manifest in the calf as in the full grown 

 animal. The horns begin to arise, as in cattle, wide apart towards the 

 angles of the forehead and grow upwards and slightly obliquely out- 

 wards for several inches before beginning to show traces of an out- 

 ward bend at the base, which is the first indication of the curvature 

 characteristic of the adult. This process was observed in the young 

 Bhotan individual now living in the Zoological Gardens in London. 



The two species of Takin that have been hitherto distinguished 

 differ as follows : — 



a. Head for the most part dark brown or blackish 

 with no definite and isolated black patch on 

 the nose below the eyes ; horns not distinctly 

 ridged in the adult and showing an abrupt up- 

 ward curvature ... ... ... ... taxicolor. 



h. Head yellow or grey with a very definite and 

 isolated black patch upon the nose below the 

 eyes ; horns, sometimes at all events, distinctly 

 ridged in the adult and more evenly and less 

 angularly curved ... ... ... ... tibetanus. 



