1894.] 



ON THE WILD CAMEL OF LOB-NOR. 



447 



occasionally saw more tracks, but we never beheld the animal in 

 the flesh till the 16th day; we were then in the most forlorn 

 country imaginable, not a blade of grass for our animals was to be 

 had, and water was only procurable about every second day. The 

 country was totally uninhabited, the nearest settlement being 

 Abdul on the Tarim Eiver near Lob-Nor. A few marches back 

 we saw Kyang occasionally, and now and then the track of a Tak 

 or a sheep, but in this dismal place there was nothing. We had 

 seen on the rocks and stunted shrubs patches of camel-hair, and 

 as these tracks became more numerous our hopes rose. On the 

 morning of the 19th June I had stayed behind with one man to 

 follow up some tracks, and Mrs. Littledale had gone on ahead with 

 the other. The latter discovered two camels and tried to shoot 

 them before I came up. Fortunately luck favoured me, and I was 

 able to get them both. Finding a small quantity of water in some 

 rocks a couple of miles from where the camels lay, we stopped a 

 day to clean and dry the skins and the skeleton, as I was anxious 

 to bring complete specimens home for the South Kensington 

 Museum. On examining the skulls we found the nostrils were 

 full of soft grubs, about 1| inch in length ; they must have been 

 very disagreeable tenants. "We put some of these into spirit and 

 brought them home along with other specimens. 



->? :>ii*.A --■*'." 



Wild Camel of Lob-Nor. 

 (From the mounted specimen in the British Museum.) 



On the next march we saw another pair of camels, but the wind 

 was wrong, and I could not get a shot. Soon after this we saw 



