XXVII. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE 

 TAKIN {BUDORCAS) FROM THE MISHMI 

 HILLS AND THAT FROM TIBET, WITH 

 NOTES ON VARIATION DISPLAYED BY 

 THE FORMER. 



By T. Bentham, Indian Museum. 

 (Plate xxiii.) 



In the collection of the Indian Museum there are twelve skulls 

 and frontlets of Budorcas taxicolor, nine of which are known to 

 come from the Mishmi Hills and one from E. Tibet, two having no 

 known history. In the Mishmi series, two sets of skulls can be so 

 arranged that they show a marked difference in rise from the young 

 to the adult stage. This rise is marked by the gradual approxi- 

 mation of the horns. The youngest of the series, which are 

 all males, has the horns at their bases quite two inches apart, 

 and this distance gradually becomes less and less until we even- 

 tually arrive at a specimen in which the horns are coincident and 

 very large. The only Tibetan species, which is a young adult, 

 seems to possess horns which are almost identical 4n size and dis- 

 tance apart with No. 2 of the Mishmi series. This almost serves to 

 point out that Mishmi and Tibetan animals cannot with certainty 

 be distinguished by the size, shape, or distance apart of their 

 horns. The only thing that can be said on this point is that the 

 horns are very variable and that this variability seems to be conse- 

 quent on the age of the animal. (For description of horns cf. 

 Chalmers Mitchell, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1907, p. 467; Lj^dekker, Game 

 Animals of India, etc., p. 162; Hodgson, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 

 vol. xix, p. 65; Milne Edwards, Rech. des Mam., 1868-74, p. 367.) 



A more important point lies in the shortness and broadness of 

 the nasal bones of the Budorcas from Tibet, as compared propor- 

 tionately with all the Mishmi specimens. This feature carries with 

 it a larger space to the opening of the nasal chamber, which is 

 deeper and higher than in the animal from Assam. In referring to 

 the nasal chamber it must also be noted that in the Tibetan skull 

 the ridges starting from the edge of the maxilla at the junction of 

 this bone with the premaxilla and lying on the floor of the nasal 

 chamber are far less marked than in the Mishmi skull (see pi. xxiii, 

 A and B, figs. 2 and 3). This last statement also applies to the pits 

 underlying the vomer, which are larger and deeper in the Mishmi 

 animal. The difference in these ridges undoubtedly shows that 

 as a consequence of their development the maxillo-turbinals are far 

 more developed in the Assam form than in that from Tibet, a fact 



