68 On the Tdkin of the Eastern Himalaya. [Jan. 



blepine valve cannot be determined with certainty from my specimens, 

 but apparently that valve is proper to them. The lofty boomed chaff ron 

 exhibits no trace of the cartilaginous protuberance, or of the peculiar 

 disposition of the hair, belonging to the Gnoos \ nor is there in any part 

 of the face of the Tdkin any cuticukr organ, gland or pore, whether 

 suborbital, malar or intermaxillary. The high curvature of the chaffron 

 is continued backwards between and beyond the horns, so that the 

 whole head presents in profile the same egregiously beaked character, 

 which Swainson,* has assigned to the Gnoo, though other representa- 

 tions of that species do not exhibit this peculiarity in the same promi- 

 nent light. The eyes, which are of that medial size proper to Bos and 

 Ovis, but distinctly smaller than in the typical Antelopes, are projected 

 boldly from the sides of the head by the saliency of the orbits yet have 

 a very lateral field of vision with little command of the prospect in front. 

 Their position is high up in the head ; that is, it is remote from the 

 muzzle and close to the bases of the horns, as in the Ox and the Sheep 

 (Ammon) ; and even more conspicuously so than in them. The horns 

 also, as well as the eyes, have a backward position in the head, far 

 from the muzzle but not equally proximate to the nape, owing to the 

 characteristically Cervine or Antelopine development of the encephalon 

 or brain-pan in the Takin ; a peculiarity diametrically opposed to the 

 normal character of the Bovine head. 



The horns of the Takin are inserted on the highest part of the fore- 

 head, as in the Ox and Sheep, though not, as in them, at the posteal 

 termination of the head ; for the encephalon of our animal, as just no- 

 ticed, spreads behind its horns in the manner of the Deer and Antelopes 

 but more restrictedly. The Takin' s horns are attached, not to the 

 lateral margins of the frontal crest, as in the Ox, but to its superior 

 surface, as in the Antelopes, Goats and Sheep. Partly owing to the 

 narrowness of the forehead in this its upper part — a narrowness con- 

 trasting remarkably with the Bovine breadth of frontals — and partly 

 owing to the thickness of their bases, the horns are nearly in con- 

 tact on the top of the head, but without actually touching. Their 

 direction is first vertically upwards, then horizontally outwards or to the 

 sides, then almost as horizontally backwards. Their basal portion, 

 which has the vertical direction, is short and the rest of the length of 

 * Classification of Quadrupeds, 1. 276. Plate. 



