136 Memorandum on Mr. BlylKs paper on Wild Asses. [No. 2, 



Memorandum on Mr. Blyth's paper on the Animals known as Wild 

 Asses. — By Major E. Strachey, F. B. S. ; F. L. S. 



In Mr. Blyth's recent paper on the Animals known as wild Asses 

 he states that " the late Prof. H. Walker referred the Tibetan 

 Kyang to Equtjs hemionus of Pallas ; and the Ghor-khur of this 

 country is even more satisfactorily referable to E. onager of Pallas, 

 figured by Gmelin : but Prof. Walker committed the extraordinary 

 mistake of figuring and describing an Indian Ghor-khur for a Kyang, 

 so that the alleged distinctions which he has pointed out are value- 

 less. However this mistake originated, there is no doubt whatever of 

 the fact."* 



Now I am in a position to say quite positively that Mr. Walker 

 was right, and that Mr. Blyth is wrong, in the matter-of-fact. The 

 animal in question was bought in my presence for the late Mr. 

 Thomason for Rs. 100, at the fair at Bagesar in Kumaon, from a 

 Tuhari Bhotiya by whom it had been got in Tibet. The story of its 

 attachment to the pony, to which Mr. Blyth also alludes, is odd, and 

 I will state it in full, with the hope that I may satisfy everybody 

 that I really do know something of the personal history of Dr. 

 Walker's Kyang. 



Mr. Thomason paid a visit to Almora (the capital of Kumaon) at 

 the end of 1817. I was there at the time, and so was my brother 

 Mr. John Strachey. We heard of the Kyang, and Mr. Thomason 

 having been informed of its existence, asked my brother to buy it 

 for him, and to send it down to Calcutta to be forwarded thence to 

 England to the Zoological Society. The animal was bought, as I be- 

 fore said. But on attempting to remove it from the place where it 

 was tied up, it most flatly refused to stir, neither coaxing nor force 

 was of any use. We were rather puzzled what to do, when on enquiry 

 of its old Bhotiya owner, we learned that it had always been in com- 

 pany with a white pony for which it had a strong affection. It then 

 occurred to us that if we got the pony too, the Kyang might be 

 induced to follow where the pony led ; and so it turned out. One or 

 two attempts were made subsequently to surprise the Kyang into a 

 more independent sort of existence, but it was of no use, and so the 

 pony and he went off to Calcutta together. 



* Journal Vol. XXVIII. p. 230. 



