The Kiang, or Tibetan Wild Ass 



they would be invaluable as beasts of transport across 

 these dreary elevated regions, where ponies often 

 succumb to the climate and want of proper food. 

 Being able to subsist on the scrubby herbage, they 

 would be far more useful than yak, which cannot 

 do without grass. But, although the individual at 

 Woburn Abbey whose portrait is here given is fairly 

 amenable to discipline, kiang, as a rule, refuse to 

 submit themselves to the hardships of servitude ; the 

 writer having a vivid recollection of the malignant 

 disposition of one kept in captivity by the Governor 

 of Ladak about 1876. 



As an animal of sport, little can be said in favour 

 of the kiang, as it yields no trophies, and can be 

 easily approached within 1 50 yards, or even less, when 

 a well-placed bullet should drop it dead in its tracks, 

 or at all events after a short run. Many sportsmen 

 shoot a specimen or two, and bring back the hide or 

 skull, or both ; but this generally suffices for most 

 men. In addition to yielding nothing worth having 

 to the sportsmen, kiang are frequently positively 

 detrimental to those in quest of nobler game, such as 

 argali, as by careering wildly about in the neighbour- 

 hood of the stalker, they render all the animals within 

 sight suspicious of danger, even although their human 

 foe may be concealed from their view. In such cases 

 an apparently favourable stalk may frequently be 

 brought to an abrupt conclusion by the sudden 

 disappearance of all the game, which have taken alarm 

 from the movements of the kiang. 



Whether, in the rarefied atmosphere of the elevated 

 regions in which it dwells, the kiang is as fleet an 

 animal as the wild ass of Baluchistan and Kutch, has 

 not yet been determined. Neither have we, apparently, 

 any definite information as to the season when the 

 foals are dropped, and the length of the period of 

 gestation. The latter is, however, probably much the 

 same as in the mare and the domestic ass, and the 



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