SOME TIBETAN ANIMALS. 



431 



Fig. 2.— Teeth of right side of jaw of great pauda. 



ica. The teeth of the great panda (fig. '2) are most l)eaiitiful and 

 interesting objects — on the whole approaching much nearer to those 

 of the lesser panda than to the nrsine type. Of the habits of the great 

 panda, we are at pres- 

 ent in complete ignor- 

 ance; but on this 

 point we may hope in 

 time to be enlightened 

 by the opening up of 

 Tibet. AMiether we 

 may ever expect to 

 see such a wonderful 

 creature alive in the 

 Regents Park, it is difficult even to guess. Prol)ably the great panda 

 is a native of the more or less wooded districts of eastern Tibet, and 

 not of the arid and elevated central plateau. 



The same must undoul)tedly be the case with the Tibetan snub- 

 nosed monkey { Rhino p'l- 

 t/i('('i/s I'o.rcllaiui') (fig. ;^>), 

 which was likewise the 

 iirst -known representa- 

 tive of a new generic 

 type discox'ered in the 

 jM<)Ui)in district of east- 

 ern Tibi'l by the Abbe 

 David. It has, however, 

 been subse(piently ob- 

 tained in Szechuan, while 

 a second representative of 

 the ffenus has been discovered in northwest China and a third in 

 the mountains l)ordering the Mekong Iviver. That the Tibetan repre-^ 

 sentative of the snub-nosed monkeys, at all events, is a native of a 

 cold climate may be infen-ed from its massive and " chubby '" l)uikl 

 and its thick coat, which in winter forms a long, silk}^ mantle of great 

 beauty on the l)ack. As to the peculiar form of the nose, so utterly 

 unlike that of ordinary monkeys, the susi:)icion arises that it may be 

 in some way connected witli life at a high altitude, seeing that the 

 Chiru antelope, to be noticed later on, has gone in for a very strange 

 development in the way of noses. At present, however, we are ^-ery 

 much in the dark as to tlie relative height of the districts in which 

 these strange monkeys are found. 



Nothing special need !)e said with regard to (he above-mentioned 

 Tibetan bear, except that it appears to be a ix'culiar species. The 

 mere mention that tlie snow-leopard {FcUs vnr.ia) is an inhabitant of 



Fig. 3. -Orange snub-nosed monkey. 



