Game Animals of India, etc. 



times used to denote a vast assemblage of horned 

 animals which come under the denomination neither 

 of cattle, sheep, nor goats ; and the question is whether 

 it should be still further extended so as to include the 

 European chamois, the Rocky Mountain goat, and the 

 subject of the present notice. In the cylindrical form 

 of their horns serows are, indeed, much more similar 

 to some antelopes than they are to any of the goats ; 

 but, on the other hand, in their clumsy build, heavy 

 limbs, and stout hoofs, as well as in their habits, they 

 undoubtedly come nearer to the goats. In order to 

 express this dual relationship, they have been called 

 goat-antelopes ; but as that term is cumbrous and 

 inconvenient, it appears preferable to call them by the 

 name by which they are known in the North- West 

 Himalaya, viz. serow, or, correctly, sarao. 



This name properly belongs to the Western 

 Himalayan representative of the group, but the 

 Sumatran or Burmese race (whose native name Kam- 

 bing-utan signifies wild goat) is discussed first for the 

 reason that while the latter was scientifically described 

 so early as the year 1801, the Himalayan animal was 

 not made known till 1832, when it was described by 

 Brian Hodgson, the discoverer of so many previously 

 unknown animals and birds of the Himalaya. 



Serows are heavily - built, ungainly mountain 

 ruminants, of about the size of an average English 

 donkey, with long, shaggy, coarse hair. Both sexes 

 are furnished with horns, which show little inferiority of 

 size in females as compared with males. The horns are 

 comparatively short, conical, and marked in the lower 

 portion by a number of low, closely approximated 

 rings, and partially interrupted longitudinal grooves. 

 In colour they are jetty black ; and while their 

 direction is at first nearly coincident with the plane of 

 the face, towards the tips they curve slightly backwards, 

 and at the same time diverge to a small degree from 

 each other. Nine and a half inches is the maximum 



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