394 On the Shou or Tibetan Staff. [No. 5. 



laya, in Bhutan, or even in Chumbi, is still more questionable, though 

 priorly reported, so that it must be considered a Tibetan species only, 

 and not a Himalayan also. 



Open plains it avoids, frequenting districts more or less mountainous 

 and provided with cover of trees. It is most common at the bases of 

 the loftier ranges, and in summer, when pasture is scarce below and 

 the snows are melted above, the Shou ascends to the immediate vici- 

 nity of the snows, and descends again in winter to the lower levels. It 

 is shy and avoids the neighbourhood of villages or houses, but depre- 

 dates by night upon the outlying crops of barley and wheat. The 

 species is gregarious, but not very greatly so, though herds of forty to 

 fifty are usual, and more commonly met with than much smaller num- 

 bers, such as six or eight or a dozen, except at night when the herds 

 are said to break up into families of the latter amounts, which families 

 collect again into the larger herds in the day time. When the animals 

 migrate, or move from one district to another, their herds are always 

 seen in fullest force. The rutting season is the autumn, and then the 

 herds are broken up, and two or three grown males may be observed 

 following and contending for each female, though she be for the most 

 part appropriated by the strongest of those males which thus attach 

 themselves to her. The breeding season is the spring, and one only 

 is produced at a birth, in places carefully selected as favouring con- 

 cealment. 



The flesh is much esteemed for eating, and the skin and horns also 

 are much prized for economic uses ; the immature horns, whilst yet 

 full of blood, being deemed so highly medicinal that they sell for their 

 weight in silver ; and the mature horns, ground to powder and taken 

 with mint, being likewise in use by the physicians of Tibet in cases 

 of cholera, vomiting and such like. 



July, 1851. 



