OF NEPAL. 



137 



is more perfectly porrect from the skin ; and that each of its hairs waved 

 beneath the surface,* whereas the hair of the Nayaurs hide is straight — ■ 

 not merely in its general direction, but, in all its length, from point to 

 point, of each hair. 



Excepting such minute variations as these, all the ruminantia of the 

 Himalaya and Tibet, which I have seen, are similarly clothed. There is 

 always an outer coat and an inner : the latter, spare, very fine, woolly, 

 more or less applied to the skin : the former, very thick, porrect, and of a 

 substance which we must call hair, though it resembles not ordinary human 

 or animal hair, or bristles. It isstiffish, brittle, feeble, rather thick or coarse, 

 and of a quill-like feel and look. It might be imagined that this sort of 

 hair is peculiarly adapted for protecting its wearers from cold : but dissec- 

 tion and the microscope fail to detect any peculiarity of structure. f 



* It is not a twist, or, spiral convolution, but an alternation merely, on the sides, of salient 

 and resilient curves. -WX./A./X^'V/'V^— 



-j- I speak under correction, and am favored by Dr. Bramley with the following observations: 

 " It is most difficult to dissect a hair; but so fur as I have performed the operation, the result 

 confirms Mr. Hodgson's observation. 



In regard to the waviness of the Chinis hair, having examined a section of the fleece, and 

 having found the alternations of salient and resilient curve locking into each other (that is, the salient 

 bows of one hair iitting into the resilient bends of another) it struck me that tliis peculiar confor- 

 mation might be of more iiuporlance than Mr. Hodgson seemed to imagine. I thought so when I 

 examined the hair, and retain the opinion on reflection ; as matter of conjecture merely, I would 

 state, that the waviness of the Chirus\\a.\Y — which is more distinctly marked from the base upwards— 

 may serve the specific purpose of confining the wool beneath in closer adaptation to the skin, under 

 all changes of attitude by the animal, than if tlic hair were straight, and may thus constitute an 

 additional security against injury from the rigour of that region which forms the Chiru's liabiiat." 



J. M. Bramley. 



2 M 



