230 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



moveable protuberance in the throat, occasioned by the 

 dilatation of the larynx, appearing externally clothed with 

 long stiff hairs pointing forwards : in old males it is so 

 much enlarged as to look monstrous. There is also under 

 the belly of the male, near the prepuce, a glandulous bag, 

 somewhat similar to that of the musk, which may have 

 caused the old opinion that the Thibetan Musk was a 

 horned animal, but in this bag there is no odoriferous 

 substance. The suborbital pores are small ; the females 

 are hornless, and smaller than the males, who measure 

 about two feet six inches at the shoulders, and nearly four 

 feet six inches in length. In the summer both are of a 

 fulvous yellow-gray above and white beneath ; in winter 

 they are almost white ; their knees are furnished with 

 short brushes, but not lengthened tufts as in the Dorcades ; 

 the tail is short and terminated by a dark tuft. 



The species is found in Mongolian Tartary, in the deserts 

 between China and Thibet, in Eastern Siberia, and prin- 

 cipally on the great sandy desert of Cobi. It avoids woody 

 places, preferring the arid stony open plains and barren 

 mountains. It is gregarious, assembling in vast herds to- 

 wards autumn, approaching the vicinity of habitations in 

 winter, and sometimes mixing with the cattle, feeding on 

 herbs and grasses, and rejecting the bitter and saline plants. 

 TheDzeren is equal in swiftness with the Saiga, less easily 

 fatigued, and in its course making surprising bounds. The 

 rutting season occurs later than in the former, and the 

 females drop their kids in the middle of June ; these are of 

 a slower growth, but equally tameable when taken young. 

 In a wild state this animal fears water so much, as to suffer 

 itself to be taken, rather than enter it ; but if falling into 

 a river by accident, is said to swim well. Wood and forest 

 are equally an object of terror with them, probably from 

 a conscious feeling that their bounding speed will cause 

 them injury, and, in fact, if they be driven among trees, 



