Bactrian Camel 



271 



wild in all the deserts of Central Asia. With regard to this point the 

 following passage may be quoted from a paper by Monsieur E. de 

 Pousargues, of the Paris Museum, on the Ruminants of Central Asia ^ : — 

 " The question has been much discussed whether the camels found 

 wandering at liberty in the Gobi are truly wild and constitute the source 

 of domesticated (two-humped) camels, or whether they are simply the 

 descendants of the latter which long since escaped from subjection and 



Fig. 64. — Adult Male Bactrian Camel in the Park at Woburn Abbey. From a photograph by the 



Duchess of Bedford. 



resumed in the desert the original wild life and habits of the species. 

 Pallas admitted both hypotheses; considering as truly wild — '■ caniclos 

 fcros' — only those camels found in the deserts immediately north of China, 

 and distinguishing those inhabiting the steppes of Dzungaria and the 

 valley of the Hi as the descendants of domesticated animals which had 

 become free — ' qiiouclani armcntis I'lhcrtate donatis orti/in traxissc vidciitiir, 

 pascaks, potiiis quam spontanci appellandi.'' Nowadays zoologists have 

 reopened the question, which they hope to decide easily by the 

 examination of a few skins and skulls now and again brought to Europe 



1 Mem. Soc. Zool. France, vol. xi. p. 137 (1898). 



