SOME TIBETAN ANIMALS. 



433 



iieasts are inferior to the wild yak, which stands nearly G feet at the 

 shoulder. These niagiiificent animals are al)solutely confined to the 

 arid central plateau, on some parts of which, hitherto closed to Euro- 

 peans, they are said to he comparatively numerous. 



Another native of the same bare plateau is the Tibetan argali, or 

 wild sheep [Orin ajnmon hod (/son i) , a magnificent animal, with horns 

 of wonderfully massive ])r()poi'tions in the old rams. Since, however, 

 this species is only a local variety of the true argali of central Asia 

 generally, it is of less interest than the types exclusively confined to 

 the country. The same may be said of the shapoo, or Tibetan urial 

 (Ovis vignel), which is the typi- 

 cal race of a smaller race of wild 

 sheep, whose range extends in 

 one direction into northwestern 

 India and in another into Persia. 

 A third species of wild sheep, 

 the bharal, or blue sheep {Oris 

 nahura), readily distinguished 

 by its smooth and peculiarly 

 curved horns and close gray- 

 blue coat with black points, is, 

 however, absolutely characteris- 

 tic of the arid Tibetan plateau, 

 on which it is found in large 

 flocks. On the other hand, the 

 Asiatic ibex (Capra sibirica), 

 Avhich frequents the more craggy 

 ground instead of the rolling up- 

 lands, is a species with a very 

 wide distribution in central Asia. 



Although the yak and the 

 bharal may be regarded as rep- 

 senting Iw themselves distinct 

 subgeneric types, all the hollow- 

 horned ruminants hitherto men- 

 tioned are members of widely spread genera. We now come, how- 

 ever, to a remarkable species, which is the sole representative of a 

 genus quite apart from any other and absolutely restricted to the arid 

 central plateau. This is the graceful chiru, or Tibetan antelope 

 {Pantholops hogsoni)^ of which the bucks are armed with long, 

 slender, and heavily ridged horns of an altogether peculiar type 

 ^fig. 4), while the does are hornless. Possibly this handsome ante- 

 lope may be the original of the mythical unicorn, a solitary buck, 

 when seen in profile, looking exactly as if it had but a 'single 

 SM 1904 — i-28 



Fig. 4.— Head of male chiru. 



