THK BIG GAME OF WESTERN CHINA. 247 



of these rocU scramblers for us, and, as illustrating the 

 extreme inaccessibility of the crags these animals frequent, 

 of three specimens shot, they were only able to recover one, 

 and he had broken one of his horns and several bones in a 

 severe fall. The goral in fact, when pursued, seems to 

 delight in climbing to the summit of the most acicular 

 pinnacle to hand, as though determined not to be captured 

 dead or alive. Otherwise he loves the grassy slopes and 

 ledges amongst the screes and gullies. 



Quite the most extraordinary animal met with in these 

 mountains is the takin(genusi3(/<fo/'Cfls),aheavily built and com- 

 paratively large animal, standing not less than three anda half 

 feet high at the shoulder. Its rather thick matted hair is tawny 

 in colour (at least in the Shensi species), rather long, as in the 

 yak (though not so long as that,) and coarse in texture. The 

 big black horns rise close together, and growing out 

 horizontally, turn straight backwards in the same plane. 

 The face is curiously shaped, and the thick lips and enormous 

 nostrils give the animal a most grotesque appearance. The 

 Budoi'cas is easily recognized amongst bovine ruminants by 

 the extremely short goat-like tail, and short sturdily built 

 legs supporting the big, heavy body. It goes about in large 

 herds of twenty or thirty, or even more, though stray animals 

 or odd pairs are occasionally' met with. Not the least 

 remarkable characterstics of the animal are its extra- 

 ordinary agility on the snow-covered screes, and a wonderful 

 vitality. The ponderous beast, as I was able to observe for 

 myself when a herd we had tracked was fired into, is as 

 sure-footed as a goat, and scrambles down the steepest places 

 with marvellous rapidity. As for its vitality, the hunters 

 had a great story to tell of how they had "killed" an animal 

 stone dead with about four bullets in him one evening, and 

 left him lying on the snow overnight; on returning for him 

 next morning, however, they were astonished to find that he 

 had cleared off under cover of darkness, having meanwhile 

 completely recovered from his quite temporary indisposition 

 — perhaps a piece of realistic foxing to stay further pellets. 

 Consequently it is now the practice amongst these hunters 

 to tie the animal down if he is going to be left for the night, 

 so that if he should come to life again, he will not be able 

 to get away. Unfortunately I am not able to give many 

 details about the habits of these animals since we only had 

 a view of the herd which we were pursuing for about five 

 minutes, after a long day spent in tracking it. The only 

 animal that was hit received a soft nosed bullet somewhere 

 in the back at a range of about a hundred and fifty yards; he 

 doubled up, slid down, lay on his back with his legs beating 

 the air wildly, rolled over, got up , and — ran away! We 



