192 
BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
and long hair which conceal the upper portions of his limbs make his ungainliness 
more conspicuous. Even in his gait he is not graceful, but none can deny his 
wonderful activity among the rocks and precipices of his favourite haunts, and he 
is notwithstanding these detractions, a noble animal, worthy the powder and lead 
of the best sportsman in the world. A venerable buck, standing solitary on a 
rock, contemplating the world below him, will make the blood of the most blasé 
sportsman tingle in his veins: or a herd of long-bearded seniors, gravely crossing a 
patch of snow, perhaps, just beyond the reach of your rifle, isa sight that will 
recur to your memory for many a year after. And the amount of fatigue and 
labour that you will have to undergo before you can bring a forty incher to bag will 
certainly create a wholesome respect in your bosom for the acute sense of smell and 
vision, and the wide-awakeness that this animal possesses in perfection. 
My experience is that the markhor is not a cold or snow-loving animal like the 
ibex, though nature has not been niggardly in supplyiug him with winter cloth- 
ing. He passes his life at a much lower level, at all seasons of the yearthan the 
other animal, and he seems to bear the heat of the early summer months with- 
out any inconvenience though he still wears his winter suit. As summer advances, 
he is driven higher by the flocks from the villages that graze gradually up as the 
snow keeps melting ; and also by the swarms of flies, gnats, midges, and what not 
that make life a burden both to man and beast at alow level. The fresh and tender 
grass, too, can be found only near the snow line. These circumstances combine 
to keep him constantly moving upwards, till he reaches open slopes near the top 
of the range where he may then be seen in close proximity to the ibex. The rut- 
ting season overtakes him here by the end of September or ,beginning of 
October, and he has his short season of madness at this high elevation where 
cover is scarce and precipices unfrequent. Native shikaries have informed me 
that this is the time for markhor shooting, and that they themselves hunt him 
most frequently at this particular time. His shyness and seclusion, I am 
inclined to think, is caused a good deal by those ever present pests, the flies. 
The cool shades of the forest and thicket preserve him from their attacks during 
the heat of the day when these insects are liveliest. In the morning and evening 
when the cold has paralyzed the activity of the flies, the markhor is not loth to take 
advantage of the opportunity. The old bucks are decidedly lazy, and if a flock. 
of them is watched for some time, a decided stiffaess and’ slowness of movement 
will soon discover the seniors of the flock. The younger bucks are’ full of life 
and play, quick in their movements and have a set-to after every dozen mouth- 
ful of grass ; the elders are always feeding or resting. The native shikaries say, 
the old bucks keep these youngsters with them for the sake of their keener sense 
of sight and smell, they are quicker to detect danger and so warn their seniors. 
THE IBEX 
Regarding the ibex, Mr. Liscomb writes :— 
The ibex is by no one means an ungainly animal, as I have styled the markhor. 
He is lord of the mountain-tops, and looks every inch the monarch of all he sur- 
veys. But I must protest against the caricature of this animal at page 445 in 
Sterndale’s book. The head shows none of the massiveness of the living animal ; 
