230 On the different Animals known as wild Asses. [No. 3. 



steppes nomme Koulan par les Kirguis occidentaux ; les details 

 que je me suis procures sur ce denier, tn'ont convaincu qu'il etoit 

 1'ane sauvage, l'Onagre des anciens. Le Koulan se tien par trou** 

 peau dans les landes montagneuses de la Tatarie occidental?, comme 

 le Dshiggitai dans les deserts de la Mongolie."* Curiously enough, 

 we at present know the Dshiggitai or Kyang more as a mountain 

 animal, iu the elevated wilds of Tibet, and the Koulan or Ghor-khur 

 more as an inhabitant of the sandy desert. 



The late Professor H. Walker referred the Tibetan Kyang to 

 Equus hehionus of Pallas ; and the Ghor-khur of this country is 

 even more satisfactorily referable to E. onager of Pallas, figured by 

 Gmelin : but Professor Walker committed the extraordinary mis- 

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

 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. The animal was procured and sent down to Calcutta 

 by the late Mr. Thomason, Governor of the N. W. Provinces ; who 

 was just in the position to obtain a Ghor-khur from the western 

 deserts, but scarcely a Tibetan Kyang. No doubt it was sold to 

 him as a Puhdrid or ' mountain' Ghor-khur, for this epithet is con- 

 tinually applied by the natives of India to any creature foreign to 

 their own province, as the experience of readers who have been in 

 the habit of purchasing animals in this country will readily testify. 

 By what route it reached Mr. Thomason we are uninformed, as also 

 how it came to be accompanied by a Himalayan pony from which it 

 was inseparable ; but having compared Dr. Walker's figure and de- 

 scription with stuffed specimens of undoubted Kyangs, and with 

 three living undoubted Ghor-Jchurs now in Calcutta, the conclusion 

 here arrived at is irresistible. 



* Voyages de Pallas, IV, 305 (French edition, 1/93). 



In p. 309, I observe a statement which is worthy of especial notice, as being 

 made by Pro r essor Pallas. The existence of the pouch of the Great Bustard 

 (Otis tarda) is denied by Professor Owen, though asserted by the Hon'ble 

 Walter Elliot to be a characteristic of the Great Bustard of Iudia (Eupodotis 

 Edwardsu). Of the former, however, Pallas thus writes — "Get animal a un 

 petit trou sous la langue, qui sert d'ouverture a une bourse aqueuse, qui est de la 

 grosseur d'un oeuf d'oie, et qui pose souvent plus de trente livres. Oa ne connoit 

 point ici la Petite Outarde." t /. A. S, XVII, pt. II, p. 1 and pi. J. 



