68 The National Collection 



In Rowland Ward's "Records of Big Game," this head stands as No. 

 3 in a list of 55, which has been arranged according to the length on the curve. 

 The death of this ram is described by Mr. Gould in the "Book of the Boone and 

 Crockett Club" for 1905, on page 55, under the title "To the Gulf of Cortez." 

 On the brass plate affixed to the shield of this gift, the donor has caused to be 

 engraved the following inscription: "Gift of George H. Gould, Santa Bar- 

 bara, California. Shot December, 1894, in eastern part of Lower California, 

 about latitude 31, just north of the northern end of San Pedro Martir 

 Mountains." 



Every sportsman will fully appreciate the generosity of Mr. Gould in 

 thus bestowing, in this collection, his most valuable trophy. Not only does it 

 stand for the chief incident of a very severe trip, but its intrinsic value is very 

 considerable. 



A NEW SUB-SPECIES OF TAKIN 



FROM the Hon. Mason Mitchell, now American Consul at Chungking, 

 China, but soon to be transferred to Apia, Samoa, we have received 

 what is undoubtedly the rarest specimen thus far acquired by the 

 National Collection. It is the entire skin, skull and horns of a Takin, from 

 the province of Szechuan, Western China, of a form that is new to science, and 

 which has very recently been described by Mr. Lydekker and christened 

 Budorcas taxicolor mitchelli, in honor of its discoverer. 



Until very recently, not one specimen of that rare and curious creature, 

 half goat and half antelope, and larger than a mule deer, ever had been killed 

 by a white man. The species was known solely by two or three mounted 

 skins, and perhaps a dozen pairs of horns that had been taken by native hunt- 

 ers and carried across the border from southern China into northeastern 

 Assam. The "nucleus collection" contained a pair of horns, as shown in Plate 

 IV, (Fig. 6), of Part I, but no one looked forward to further accessions from 

 that species at this early date. 



In a case that has been five months in transit, and that looked as if it had 

 come from the farthest corner of the earth ; closely swathed in many thicknesses 

 of cloth, sewed up like a mummy and smelling of the most pungent of the pow- 

 ders that are dealt in by the Chinese apothecary to keep off bugs, mice and rats 



