THE STORY OF THE YAK. 



On the plateau of Thibet I hunted the long-haired yak some years ago. 

 We reached the most inaccessible region of that wild country, rarely visited 

 by white men, in the spring and spent a part of the summer there. During 

 that period I frequently followed the yak and shot several large specimens 

 of the animal. Its long hair, the longest on any animal, is its chief distin- 

 guishing feature. Some of the bulls weighed 1.500 pounds. 



Yak inhabit the plateau of Thibet, probably extending northwards as. far 

 as the Kuen-Luen range, while eastwards they range into the Chinese 

 province of Kansu, and westwards enter the eastern portions of Ladak, 

 especially the regions in the neighborhood of the Chang-Chenmo valley and 

 the great Pangkong lake. The greater portion of the country comprised 

 within this extensive area is desolate and dreary in the extreme, but yak 

 confine themselves to the wildest and most inaccessible portions of these 

 regions, and are found only at great elevations, ranging in summer from 

 about fourteen thousand to upwards of twenty thousand feet, and perhaps 

 even more, above the level of the sea. They are at all times extremely 

 impatient of heat, and delight in cold. 



Although so large a beast, it thrives upon the coarsest pasturage, and 

 its usual food consists of a rough wiry grass, which grows in all the higher 

 valleys of Thibet, up to an elevation of nearly twenty thousand feet. Yak 

 seem to wander about a good deal. In summer the cows are generally to 

 be found in herds varying in numbers frcmi ten to one hundred; while the 



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