238 On tlie different Animals known as wild Asses. [No. 3. 



Having thus elaborately compared them, it is impossible to agree 

 with Dr. J. D. Hooker when he asserts that the Kyang " differs wide- 

 ly from the 'wild Ass' of Persia, Sindh, and Beluchistan," although 

 "undoubtedly the same as the Siberian animal." He adds, that 

 " it resembles the Ass more than the Horse, from its size, heavy 

 head, small limbs, thin tail and the stripe over the shoulder [!]. 

 The flesh is eaten and much liked. The Kyang-lah mountains are 

 so named from their being a great resort of this creature."* Tre- 

 beck's remarks on the figure of the Kyang, as quoted by Cunning- 

 ham, apply alike to either race. The accomplished botanist cited 

 would most assuredly not recognise, as distinct species, two plants 

 from different regions which diifered so very slightly from each 

 other as the Ghor-khur and the Kyang differ in the animal king- 

 dom. Indeed, so far as I can discover, the difference is only in 



caudal region, which in Major Tytler's animals is conspicuously much whiter : the 

 mesial dark line is very slight — almost evanescent — down the tail, in which respect 

 all the Ghor-Tchurs differ from all the Kyangs under examination ; and this stripe 

 is not broader upon the croup than in an ordinary Donkey : there are no traces 

 of markings on the limbs. The skull is unfortunately abnormal, being unsymme- 

 trical and curiously deviating from the straight line, to the left at the occiput and to 

 the right at the muzzle. The nasal bones are more compressed than in the Kyang 

 skull ; but this difference does not exist in Major Tytler's younger Ghor-khur skull, 

 nor certainly in his three living animals, so far as a judgment can be formed on 

 careful examination of them. There is an obvious deformity in the shape of the 

 lower jaw, the rami of which approximate almost to contact underneath for a 

 considerable portion of their length, and not quite symmetrically. 



The only equine skull in the Calcutta Medical College is catalogued as that of 

 a Horse ; but it exhibits the true asinine contour, and is nearly as large as that 

 of the adult Kyang. I do not think that it is a mule-skull ; but rather that it 

 belonged to a fine specimen of the large Levantine race of domestic Asses, which 

 is occasionally met with in the N. W. of India, chiefly beyond Delhi. Had it been 

 the skull of a wild animal, it would probably have been registered as such : and 

 moreover, as a general rule, there is a considerable quantity of dark incrustation 

 on the teeth of wild grazing animals, which I think is never much observable on 

 those of domestic beasts : in the present instance, this is exhibited by the skull of 

 a wild Kyang and that of a wild Ghor-khur under examination, and in no skull 

 of domestie Horse or Ass, nor in the dubious Medical College specimen. 



* ' Himalayan Journal,' II, 172. 



