Game Animals of India, etc. 



THE HIMALAYAN GORALS 



(JJrotragus goral -iindi U. bedfordi) 



Native Names. — Goral \^ the North-west Himalaya ; 

 P//, Pijur, Rai and Rom^ Kashmiri ; Sah or Sar 

 IN the Sutlej Valley ; Suh-ging of the Lepchas ; 

 Ra-giyu of the Bhots of Sikhim ; Deo Chagal 

 IN Assam. 



(Plate v, fig. 3) 



Owing to the practice of applying the names of 

 European animals to their relatives in other countries, 

 goral are often known among sportsmen as Himalayan 

 chamois ; but beyond the fact that they belong to a 

 group of ruminants in some degree serving to connect 

 antelopes with goats, they have really little in common 

 with chamois, from which they differ by the shaggy 

 coat, as well as in the more sombre coloration, and the 

 form of the horns. They are, in fact, near relatives of 

 the serows, from which they are mainly distinguished 

 by the absence of glands on the face, and in certain 

 details of the skull. 



In most characters, such as the naked muzzle, the 

 presence of glands in the feet, and of four teats in the 

 female, as well as in the development of horns in both 

 sexes, gorals resemble serows ; the absence of face- 

 glands being the chief reason for referring them to a 

 separate group. Very generally the tail is comparatively 

 short (about 4 inches in the Himalayan species), 

 but it attains a considerable length in the long-tailed 

 goral {U. caudatus). As a rule, gorals are smaller than 

 serows, but there is a species of the latter from Japan 

 {Nemorhadus crisptis) not much larger than a goral. 



In all gorals the short black horns, which are nearly 

 as large in does as in bucks, are very similar to those 

 of serows, being conical and slightly divergent, curving 



148 



