About Yak 263 



statement, that after it had knocked a man down 

 it skinned him from head to heels by licking him 

 with its tongue ! 



The real wild yak, while not possessing quite 

 the fearsome attributes these writers invested him 

 with, looses little in interest by the light of public- 

 ity that in these days beats on the most retiring 

 of animals. What if his combatant instinct is 

 (pace Sven Hedin) small? Till human hunters 

 came on the scene, he was sole monarch over his 

 wind-swept plains and valleys, and had no struggle 

 for existence of the kind that develops truculency. 

 What if his terrible hoofs are used for no more 

 aggressive purpose than to carry his huge bulk 

 over high mountains, his horny tongue for nothing 

 more sinister than to scrape up the mosses and 

 vegetation that afford no tooth-hold? His home 

 is the uninhabited regions of Tibet, midway 

 between heaven and earth, and his vast frame is 

 nourished by the sparse verdure that fringes the 

 region where no green thing can grow. It is 

 hardly strange that an animal of his size, that can 

 find sustenance and congenial surroundings where 

 the normally made perish for want of oxygen, 

 should have been given a supernatural halo of 

 ferocity. 



From a sporting point of view, the yak has his 

 failings. He has not the eyesight of other moun- 



