192 MORE PARTICULARS OF THE YAK. 



find for repose, or seek the shelter of some cliff 

 where they can avoid the sun's rays, preferring to 

 lie on the snow, or if there be none, on the bare 

 ground, in which they scrape a hollow with their 

 hoofs. 



Their favourite resorts are thickly strewn with 

 their dung, which is the only fuel in these deserts, 

 and without which the journey across Tibet would 

 be impracticable, for there are no bushes of any kind 

 in this country. 



The wild yaks require plenty of water, and their 

 numerous tracks and droppings near the warm 

 springs prove the frequency of their visits to them ; 

 when water is unobtainable they slake their thirst 

 with snow. But in summer they are at no loss, for be- 

 sides an abundance of streams and springs, plenty of 

 rain water collects in the pools, by the side of which 

 grass is abundant, and the yak, by no means a 

 dainty feeder, after growing thin during winter, be- 

 comes fat again in autumn ; this is particularly the 

 case with young bulls and single cows. 



The breeding time, which is in September, lasts 

 a whole month, and then the character of the yak 

 undergoes a complete change. At this season the 

 bulls wander day and night over the plains in search 

 of mates, and engage in sanguinary battles with one 

 another. These fights must often be of a desperate 

 kind, judging from the fact that nearly all those 

 that we shot in Avinter bore the marks of wounds 

 inflicted in these amorous duels, some of the scars 

 being very large ; one bull that we shot had one of 



