on the Corns of Kunanda. 
165 
1886.] 
'silver, but on tbe same Plate a copper coin fig. 8 supports the same con¬ 
clusion. It may also be added that on two copper coins on the Plate 
figs. 9 and 10 the symbol appears to be wholly absent. 
In every coin but one, which has come under my notice, in either 
silver or copper, the horns are unbranched, or of the bovine, as contrasted 
with the cervine type, and in the exceptionally fine specimen a, would 
appear as though slightly twisted, precisely as the horns of the yak 
actually are. Generally, however, the horns are represented, as simply 
curved, but for this, there is a sufficient reason, in the extreme difficulty 
of representing in metal, such horns in any other way ; there was there¬ 
fore every inducement to the artist to represent a branched horn of a 
‘ deer ’ as most effectively and in the most artistic manner indicating 
that animal, had such been his design. On the evidence then of eoins a 
and d it may be assumed as established, that the horns of the animal repre¬ 
sented on the majority of these coins, are not “ fancifully curved ” 
(through their aecidentally coalescing with the symbol above them) but 
possess the simple curvature of a yak’s horn, and as the peeuliar bushy 
tail of that animal is represented as well, with no mean pietorial fidelity, 
the conclusion is irresistible that the Himalayn yak, and no species of 
‘ deer,’ is the animal usually intended. 
One coin has, however, fallen under my notice,the first upper coin of 
this series in the British Museum collection, which undoubtedly repre¬ 
sents an animal with branched horns, and I see therefore no escape from 
the conclusion that on this particular coin a deer and not a yah is really 
intended. Perhaps other collections may contain similar coins, but it is 
the only one I have myself hitherto seen. On this coin also (whether 
as some might suppose fortuitously, or as I am inclined to believe, by 
intention) the tail of the animal is long and lank, and not bushy like a 
yak’s; and the very fact of the tail being represented rather long, 
though a deer’s tail is short, appears to me not improbably to have been 
an intentional deviation from nature on the artist’s part, the more for¬ 
cibly to proclaim by the palpable contrast between a lank tail and the 
ordinary bushy one, the substitution of a stag in place of the more gener¬ 
ally accepted yak. This it may, perhaps, be urged is too refined a specula¬ 
tion, as on the coarser and less carefully executed copper coins of the usual 
type, the bushy character of the tail is not invariably maintained ; but in 
the case of this coin (though it be of copper) where the artist has intro¬ 
duced the crucial detail, as I may call it, of a branched horn, the style of 
tail represented, more probably results from design, and is correlated to 
the alteration in other particulars, than from imperfect or careless execu¬ 
tion. 
It now remains only to add a few words on the objects or symbols 
