Cabul Markhor 293 



in the mornings and evenings. In the spring individuals of all sizes and 

 ages are to be seen together in the herds, but as the summer advances 

 the does usually retire to the more open ground above the forest belt, 

 while the old males restrict themselves still more exclusively to the latter, 

 and are consequently almost impossible to discover. And here it may be 

 remarked that by the shikaris of the Pir-Panjal the name markhor is 

 applied exclusively to the hoary old bucks, the younger males being 

 termed rind, and the temales bakri, or she-goat. According to General 

 M'Intyre, the does appear generally to produce only a single kid at a 

 birth, as none were observed by him with twins. 



Owing to the badness ot the ground these animals frequent, markhor- 

 shooting is one of the most dangerous of Himalayan sports. As General 

 Kinloch observes, they " must be followed over steep inclines of short grass, 

 which the melting snow has left with all the blades tiattened downwards ; 

 and amid pine-trees, whose needle-like spines strew the ground and render 

 it more slippery and treacherous than ice. If one falls on such ground one 

 instantly begins to slide down the incline with rapidly increasing velocity, and 

 unless some friendly bush or stone arrests one's progress, the chances are that 

 one is carried over some precipice, and either killed or severely injured." 



c. Cabul Race — Capra falconeri megaceros 



Capra megaceros, Hutton, Calcutta yoi/rn. Nat. Hist. vol. ii. p. ^^^, 

 pi. XX. (1842), Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xv. p. i6i (1846) ; Ward, Records 

 of Big Game, p. 236 (1896). 



Characters. — Size apparently medium. Horns of male nearly straight, 

 but still showing a slightly open spiral, being in fact intermediate between 

 those of the Pir-Panjal and Suleman races, with both of which they inter- 

 grade. 



Distribution. — The Trans-Indus districts in the neighbourhood of Cabul, 

 and perhaps farther south ; thus forming the extreme north-westerly limits 



