204 THE ORONGO-ANTELOPE ; 



tions. AccordincT to the same authority the ewes 

 drop their young in June,^ and the horns of old rams 

 curve so much downwards and forwards as to pre- 

 vent them from feeding, and thus sometimes cause 

 their death by starvation. I will not vouch for the 

 truth of this statement, and can only say that in 

 Northern Tibet I rarely saw one of their skulls. 



Another characteristic animal of the Tibetan 

 highlands is the antelope, called by the Mongols and 

 Tangutans oi^ongo [Autilopc Hodgsoni). The male 

 is remarkably handsome ; in size no bigger than a 

 dzeren, with a beautifully shaped body set on long, 

 slender legs, and with elegant black horns (twenty- 

 three inches long) standing vertically above the 

 head, slightly curved, and annulated on the anterior 

 surface. In winter the hair on the upper part and 

 sides of the muzzle, the sides of the breast, and fore 

 parts of the legs are black, the neck, middle of the 

 breast, stomach, and rump white, the back dun- 

 coloured."^ When seen at a distance it appears white. 

 The female is much smaller than the male, and has 

 no horns or black marks on the body. We first 

 saw the orongo after crossing the Burkhan Buddha 

 range, beyond which it is distributed towards the 

 south as far as the Tang-la mountains. It loves the 

 valleys and rolling plains, and, after the yak, is the 

 most numerous of the animals of Northern Tibet. 

 Like the kulan and the yak it requires water, and 



' The argali of Mongolia breeds in August, and the young are 

 dropped in March. 



In summer its hair is said to lie of a reddish rolour like th:it of 

 dzeren. 



