THE SEK0WS,G011ALS AND TAKINS OF BRITISH INDIA. S19 



Bmlonas tax'wolor miuhelll, Lydekker, The Field, ]y08, |«. 790 : 



id. Pro. Zool. Sue, London, 1908, p. 797. 

 Btulorcas tibetanus, Lydekker, lor ri(, p. 797. 



(-olour of the adult, nuile a rich iiolden yellow in summer and grey 

 in winter on the iiead, tbrequarters and over the greater jiait ol" the 

 hody, though elouded here and there with iron-grey, and ])assing hito 

 iron-grey or nearly blaok upon the limbs both externally and internally. 

 Ears and tail blackish ; a large black ])atch covering the lower 

 jtortion of the muzzle below the eyes. A dark spinal stripe extends 

 Ir.ickwards from the withers. The female resembles the male to a 

 areat extent, but instead of being golden yellow, the colour 

 is decidedly grey. (3verlooking the fact that Milne Edwards 

 described the female as grey, Mr. Lydekker described the grey 

 Sze-chuen Takin as a distinct race under the name Bud&rcas 

 taxicolor miichelU. It should be noticed that the figure ot the tyjie 

 published by Milne Edwards represents the legs as black fiom above 

 the knees and hoofs, whereas in the specimens in the British 

 Museum above described they are iron-grey. There is, however, no 

 properly localized material to show whether this difference has anv 

 systematic significance or not. A further point is this. The skull 

 ot the Sze-chuen Takin figured by Mr. Lydekker in ] 908 (P. Z. tS., 

 1909, fig. 169) is very different from the one shown in Milne 

 Edward's work (pi. 77) ; the orbits especially and the angle of the 

 maxilla being much more prominent. This, however, nuiy perha])s be 

 accounted for by the dift'erence in age of the two animals, Milne 

 Edward's being much the y(junger of the two. Lastly, Mr. Lydekker 

 rightly says the horns of the examples of this species in the British 

 Museum are more slender than in the Mishmi Hills species IJ. taxicolor. 

 But the measurements given by Rowland Ward hardly siipj)ort the 

 view that the horns of all Chinese and Tibetan sj)ecimen-; arc tliiinx'i- 

 than in Assames(? examples. 



The greatest circumference, for instance, in three specimen- from 

 Kansu in (Miina and from Tibet, one of the latter being Pen- 

 David's specimen in the Paris Museum, are 11^, Ji^, 12], whereas the 

 much larger number of measurements taken from Assamese material 

 show the average circumference to be somewhere between 11 and 12i,", 

 one, perhaps a female, being 10^ and only one reaching lij. Hunce 



