THE SERO WS, GORALS AND TAKINS OF BRITISH INDIA. 317 



on grassy patches near their favourite hannts and spend the day- 

 resting on inaccessible ledges of rock on the precipitous hill-sides. 

 Their note of alarm is a short sharp hissing or sneezing noise 

 which is immediately taken up by others of the party near by. 

 Their flesh is not bad eating ; and the best season to shoot them 

 is from December to May. According to this same observer they 

 stand from 25 to 27 inches at the shoulder; the average length of 

 the horns, which are onl}^ slightly longer and thicker in the male 

 than in the female, being about 4 inches or rather over. 



Supplementary note on the Takin (Budorcas). 



In the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. XIX, 

 pp. 812 — 821, 1910, I gave an account of the described forms of 

 Takins from North India and China. Since then Mr. Oldfield 

 Thomas has described as representing a new species some speci- 

 mens procured at Tai-pei-San in Shen-si, a province of northern 

 China, naming it Budorcas bedfordi, in honour of the Duke of Bed- 

 fordo 



It may be remembered that the pi'evailing colour of the 

 Assamese and Bhotan Takin (5. taxioolor') is blackish brown with 

 the whole of the upper side of the body, apart from the dark 

 spinal stripe, suffused with greyish yellow. At least in the case of 

 old animals it seems that there is considerable variation in colour, 

 possibly of a seasonal nature. The new coat, when it first appears, 

 is brown, and the old coat, when it is ready to be shed, nearly grey. 

 The Bhotan Takin was regarded by Mr. Lydekker as a geogra- 

 phical race distinct from the typical form from the Mishmi Hills, 

 but whether this view prove to be well founded or not, the Takins 

 hitherto discovered in the two districts in question are to all intents 

 and purposes identical. 



North of the Eastern Himalayas, in Moupin and Sze-chuen, the 

 Takin just mentioned is replaced by a lighter form (B. tiheianus) 

 which is mostly yellow or grey in colour, but retains a blackish 

 patch on the mtizzle, black ears and tail, a short dark spinal stripe, 

 and blackish or iron-gre}^ legs. Thus the main characters in 

 which this Southern Chinese animal differs from the Assamese one 

 in the extension of the pale coloration over the greater part of the 

 head, and its intensification everywhere. 



In the Shen-si form (B. hedfordi) the obliteration of the pigment 

 is carried a stage further. The dark coloration has disappeared 

 from the spinal area and from the tail ; but on the muzzle, ears 

 and legs, a varying amount of black persists, at least in some skins 

 as tell-tale marks of affinity between the Shen-si and Sze-chuen 



