Description of the Wild Ass of Tibet. 473 



Remarks, — I possess five skins procured through the kind 

 arrangements of Dr. Campbell in my favour. I have studied 

 with attention what travellers and systematists say about the 

 wild horses and asses of Tibet and its vicinity ; but I find 

 little satisfactory or even intelligible beyond Pallas' account 

 of the Dziggatai, and to that I can only refer at second-hand. 

 There is, I believe, no species of wild horse in Tibet, and only 

 one species of wild ass, viz* the Kiang above described, and 

 which appears much to resemble the Dziggatai, as described 

 by Pennant after Pallas. The Dziggatai, however, is ex- 

 pressly stated to want two of the usual complement of equine 

 teeth, whereas the Kiang unquestionably possesses two in 

 excess of that complement. Moreover, the Dziggatai is stat- 

 ed to have a flat forehead ; and the colours of its mane, tail, 

 and body differ materially from those of the Kiang. Where- 

 fore, I think the Kiang may prove a new species, and I have 

 named it Polyodon, from its singularly anomalous dentition, 

 having 7*7 molars in the upper jaw. 



Colonel H. Smith alleges that the Kiang is the prototype 

 of the piebald race of Tanghans, a mistake which can only be 

 accounted for by a love of paradox and want of information 

 on his part of all but the name of the Kiang. The Kiang 

 possesses every mark of the sub-genus Asinus, as defined by 

 himself whereas the c Ablac' breed of ponies, peculiar to 

 Bootan, are horses every inch of them, differing entirely, 

 even in colour, from the Kiang. 



P. S.— Since the above was written, I have received two more spe- 

 cimens of the Kiang, provided with sculls, and both of these fresh 

 sculls exhibit the 7th molar tooth in the upper jaws. There can 

 be no longer question therefore that this excess is normal. Pallas 

 cannot have been mistaken in regard to the dentition of the Dziggatai. 

 His total of its teeth is 38, and, as the front and binary teeth are not 

 apt to vary like the molars, the Dziggatai' s dental formula must be 



6 H M 

 6 1.1 6.6' 



3 a 



