QUAINT BEASTS AND QUEER HABITS, 209 
was rolling in the sand of a dry watercourse. I was without a gun, so 1 was 
unabije to secure him for tho British Museum and have never yet been able to 
identify his species. The other Kiangchu, forty miles to the north-east, lived 
upto its name with a vengeance. There, on the occasion of my first stalk after 
Tibetan Gazelle in 1905, I was unfortunate enough to attract the attention by 
one of those inquisitive nuisances known as Kiang in the local vernacular and of 
other more expressive names to the sportsmen who have endured their vagaries. 
On this occasion the first individual, having conducted an independent investi- 
gation, then went off and fetched two of his friends to enjoy the sight of an angry 
man trying to hide behind a stone five sizes too small. Others came up and 
brought their pals till finally I had seventeen of them kicking up their heels and 
playing at circus behind me, so that the gazelle I was stalking gathered that there 
was something amiss and departed over the horizon. These coffin-headed 
brutes, half horse, half donkey, turn up and show off their beautiful trotting 
action (their only virtue amongst innumerable vices) in all sorts of out-of-the 
way places, and generally manage to arrive at the very moment best calculated 
to spoil a stalk. I had one or two stalks spoiled by wild asses in Somaliland. 
but they were not nearly so numerous as the Kiang is in Ladakh, of which latter 
I once collected twenty-three by the simple expedient of lying on the ground 
and waving my handkerchief, there being but one solitary specimen in sight when 
I began. Iam glad to say that I never lost my temper quite so badly as to shoot 
one, as did one sportsman of my acquaintance with a Somali Wild Ass. At that 
time these animals were on the “‘ protected ”’ list and when asked by the autho- 
rities for an explanation of his crime, my friend stated that he had done it in 
self-defence, as the animal had kicked him ! 
