1905.] ox THE GORAL FOUXD IX BURMA. 311 



8. Notes on the Goral found in Burma. 

 ' By Major G. H. Evans *. 



[Received September 2, 1905.] 



The Himalayan range in Assam gives off a succession of spurs 

 southward to form a tract of mountainous and, in many parts, 

 almost impassable country extending into Arakan and Burma, 

 and inhabited by numerous wild tribes. That portion of this 

 tract lying between Assam and Manipur to the north, Chittagong 

 and Tipperah on the west, Arakan on the south, and Burma on 

 the east, is now^ known as the Chin-Lushai Hills. These so-called 

 hills vary in their altitude from 1000 to 10,000 feet. 



I was employed in what was known as the Southern Chin Hills 

 from November till June 1889-90, and during my stay visited 

 several Chin villages. Like many others who have visited these 

 people, I came to the conclusion that Chins generally, and their 

 chiefs in particular, have one hobby at least, viz., collecting skulls. 

 Outside and inside the villages, skulls were to be seen stuck on 

 posts or kept in the houses. The finest collection I met with was 

 in the house of a Boungshe chief, wdiose tribe is thus called by the 

 Burmans, from the method in which they dress their long hair. 

 The whole hair is done up in a large knot placed well forward on 

 the top of the head, almost on the forehead, and round this ball 

 of hair is wound, round and round, usually a white turban with 

 a blue stripe through the centre. In the chief's house was a 

 collection of skulls, excellent as I'egards the number and variety. 

 The heads ranged from those of elephants to palm-civets, and I 

 doubt if there are many museums which could excel the collection 

 of monkey skulls, at least numerically. The chief enjoyed the 

 reputation of having been a mighty Nimrod in his youth, and I 

 was informed that he had shot practically every head in the 

 collection. I noticed one splendid gaur skull, three or four fine 

 mythun or gayal, several sambar and serow, also some small heads 

 which I concluded must be goral. Game throughout the hills was 

 scarce, a matter not to be wondered at, inasmuch as every Chin 

 had a gun of some sort, and in addition was always trapping and 

 snaring. I was assured that the Goial heads had been obtained 

 in the hills, but that now the animals were very scarce. I had 

 no opportunity of verifying at this time the presence of Goral in 

 these hills, and any attempt to do so would have been a matter 

 of considerable risk owing to the most unfriendly attitude of the 

 people. Many months later I happened to be in a Burmese 

 village some hundred miles distant, but on the confines of the 

 South Chin Hills, and there discovered in a house the skull of a 

 Goral identical with those above mentioned. On enquiry from the 

 Burmans I learned that it had been obtained from some Chinboks, 

 another tribe of Chins near Loungshe in the Yaw country. As 



* Communicated by R. Ltdekker, F.Z.S. 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1905, Vol. II. No. XXII. 22 



