206 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST, SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII. 
a wolf sneaking along a small grassy depression in which three Kiangs or Tibetan 
Wild Asses were feeding. It seemed tome that a solitary wolf would hardly 
tackle as big a beast as a Kiang, but I was hardly prepared for the utter indiffe- 
rence shown by the latter, who scarcety troubled to raise their heads to stare 
at the wolf, as he passed between two of them feeding not ten yards apart. I 
then saw that he was making for a large flock of sheep, which were grazing 
some 250 yards further on, their Tibetan shepherds being squatted round a 
small fire on the river bank as much again beyond them. The wolf having 
arrived within forty yards of the flock seemed to cover the intervening ground 
like a streak of lightning and pulled down a ram with one jerk of his 
powerful jaws, seizing it behind the ears. He then proceeded to tear open the 
stomach of his prey, while the remainder of the flock fled about eighty yards, 
and then turned to stare, a huddle of woolly idiocy. The wolf then left his ram 
and began to trot slowly towards them. When he was within fifty yards they 
turned and began to flee, their enemy cantering behind them until he had 
shepherded them into galloping at top speed. He then spurted suddenly 
in the most amazing manner into the middle of the flock and pulled down 
sheep after sheep with such wonderul speed and dexterity that there were 
five lying on the ground within a distance of thirty yards. His method was 
extraordinarily interesting. He came up on the right side of each sheep (there- 
by bearing out the theory that most carnivora are left-handed) and, seizing the 
galloping sheep behind the right ear, jerked its head downwards. and inwards 
so that it pitched on its nose, the result being that it was stunned by the com- 
bined effect of the downward jerk and the impact of its own fall almost or quite 
dislocating its neck. At the fifth sheep the wolf stopped and began to tear open 
its stomach, as he had done with the ram he had first pulled down. The shep- 
herds then ran up and drove him off. I thought he would probably come back 
to the first ram, and ran to try and get a shot ; but running at 14,000 feet above 
sea-level is difficult work, and I had to sit down about two hundred yards 
from it just as the wolf arrived there. Before I could get my sights on him, he 
saw me, and immediately broke into a lope whose pace was so deceptive that, 
although I thought I had allowed almost more than enough in front of him, my 
bullet passed behind his tail, and he departed at a rate which made shooting with 
any chance of hitting a task beyond my powers. Of the six sheep which he had 
pulled down, the first ram was on its legs again, a piteous sight, its bowels dragg- 
ing tumbled on the ground. Of the final batch of five only the last was dead, the 
other four all getting on their legs and staggering about dazed and giddy. 
It seemed to me that I had seen the Tibetan wolf’s usual way of securing a 
stock of meat. For, having stunned several beasts, he would then proceed to 
rip them open, and so prevent their going any further ; then kill them at his 
leisure and have a supply which would keep an indefinite length of time in the 
cold air of that altitude and in the absence of vultures and other thieves which 
would render such a method unprofitable in other parts of India. I do not say 
that this is necessarily so, but is merely a theory which seems the only possible 
explanation of the wolf’s method in this particular case. 
An interesting instance of the adaptation of an animal’s breeding habits to 
the local climate in districts quite close to one another is shown by the Red 
Jungle Fowlin Burma. Inthe Lower Salween valley you will find the chicks 
hatched out by the first week in April and finding their food under the thick 
carpet of dead leaves ; thus they are well advanced and able to withstand the 
terrific downpour of the monsoon in May. In the dry zone of Burma, however, 
conditions are reversed. There the jungle is not so heavy and the dead leaves 
not so thick ; while the mongoon is reduced to a season of heavy, but helpful 
showers with but rarely a few consecutive hours of rain. These conditions foster 
the birth of a crowded insect life lasting till the dry season returns again. In 
such districts the jungle fowl do not hatch out till the rains are well begun, and 
