ment, as it was doubtless implanted in the animal after leaving its native heights. Though the Yak is indifferent to ice and snow, and changes of temperature, it cannot endure hunger so long as the sheep; and though sure footed, it cannot so well as the sheep pick its way on stony ground. Neither can it bear damp heat, for below 7000 feet liver disease carries it off after a very few years.

The wild race is spoken of by Pennant as exceedingly savage. If in the chace they are not killed on the spot, they grow so furious from the wounds that they will pursue the assailant, and if they overtake him they never desist tossing him on their horns into the air as long as life remains. Even when subjugated they retain their fierce nature, and are particularly irritated at the sight of red or gay colours. Pennant further remarks, that Ælian is the only ancient author who mentions this remarkable quadruped, which he describes as the Poëphagus, an Indian animal larger than a horse, with a most thick tail, and black, composed of hairs finer than the human, highly valued by the Indian ladies for ornamenting their heads. Each hair he describes as two cubits long. It was the most fearful of animals, and very swift. When chased by men or dogs, it found itself nearly overtaken, it would face its pursuers, and hide its hind parts in some bush, and wait for them, imagining that if it could conceal its tail, which was the object they were in search of, it would escape uuhurt. The hunters shot at it with poisoned arrows, and when they had slain the animal, took only the tail and hide, making no use of the flesh.

A very singular female head-dress, figured by Dr. Hooker, is to this day made in Thibet from its hair; and the animal is still shot with poisoned arrows. Dr. Hooker says it is hunted with large dogs; is untameable, and horridly fierce, falling upon you with horns and chest; and if he rasps you with his tongue, it is so rough as to scrape the flesh from the bone.

They rut in winter, and produce young in autumn. The calves are covered with rough black curled hair, like a curled haired dog; and when three months old they obtain the long hair on the body and tail. Dr. Hooker says they are very full of gambols, tearing up and down the steep grassy and rocky slopes. Their flesh is delicious, much richer and more juicy than common veal. The flesh of the old Yak is sliced and dried in the sun, forming jerked meat, which is eaten raw, and owing to the small quantity of fat does not become very rancid, but is palatable

food. When the calf is killed, the mother will yield no milk unless the foot or stuffed skin be given her to lick, which she does with eagerness, expressing her satisfaction by short grunts, exactly like those of a pig. This sound replaces in this species the lowing uttered by ordinary cattle, and from the peculiarity its name of "grunting ox," and its systematic one of "grunniens," are derived. It is, however, only emitted under emotion or uneasiness. The Yaks appear to be unusually attached to their young, for when the cows are driven with the rest of the herd to roam at large, and for a length of time, on the mountains, the calf is retained below as a pledge for the mother returning, in which she never fails.

The domesticated Yaks are used for a variety of purposes. They vary much in colour, ranging from red to black, and are irregularly marked with large patches of white; the hump and tail are often white, and the face and legs sometimes partly so. They cross readily with Zebus, and other cattle; hence, doubtless, the hump frequently spoken of as occurring in some individuals, and which appears to be wholly wanting in the wild kinds, though the spinal processes of the vertebræ are unusually developed, and produce very high withers.

Dr. Hoffmeister, who accompanied Prince Waldemar of Prussia in his travels in Asia, as physician, thus speaks of the varieties used for ploughing and riding. "The Yak-ox used in riding is an infinitely handsomer animal than that kept to the plough; it has a stately hump, a rich silky hanging, nearly reaching the ground, twisted horns, a noble bearing, and an erect head. Those used for ploughing are ugly and short legged, and hold their heads very low; the beautiful long silky hair hanging from below the belly is almost, if not entirely, wanting in them, no less than the bushy tail, which their avaricious owners commonly cut off, as an article of trade." The same writer states that a wooden plough is used, and that one man guides the Yak by the nose while another directs the plough.

"Although our path," the Doctor observes, "appeared, from a distance, to be extremely dangerous, it proved quite sufficiently firm and level for our broad-footed Yak-oxen, noble beasts with the thick silky white fringe under the body, and the bushy tail, both of which sweep the ground; but soon the steepness increased so much that these poor animals began to groan, or rather to grunt, in the most melancholy manner; and this

D

unearthly music gradually rose to such a violent rattle, that-driven rather by its irksome sound than by the discomfort of our saddleless seats-we dismounted at the end of the first half-hour."

Dr. Hooker intimates that the Lamas, nevertheless, relish this mode of travelling. They find the Yak's shaggy coat warm, and his paces easy; but their Yaks are always led, which does not appear to have been the case with the cavalcade above-mentioned. The Yak is a powerful beast of burden, and from its strength and hardiness accomplishes, at a slow pace, twenty miles a day, having either two bags of salt or rice, or four to six planks of pine wood, slung in pairs along either flank. Among the Wallanchoons, their ears are generally pierced, and ornamented with a tuft of scarlet worsted.

The splendid bushy tails of the Yak, which have no equal amongst quadrupeds, are used throughout the East as fly-whisks, and are known under the name of Chowries. They form one of the chief articles of commerce in Thibet, being used for various purposes of ornament, besides the highly useful one of brushing away the flies and mosquitoes. They are fastened as ornaments to the ears of elephants; the Chinese dye them red, and form the hair into tufts for their bonnets; the Turks and Persians make standards of them, though commonly named horse-tails, and dye them of various colours; and they are used to decorate the throat band and croups of horses. The hair of the flanks is used for ropes, which are as strong as those of hemp; and also for cloth for tents-which are, however, not impervious to wind and rain. Mats are made from the same material; and it is also made into a strong fabric, which is stated to make excellent riding trousers-doubtless, also, of lasting quality. The hair being applied to all these various and useful purposes, it is no marvel that, as I am informed by Dr. Adams, the attendants upon the Yaks are always remarkably industrious in combing their sleek and silky sides, and taking care to lose as little as possible of so valuable a commodity; which, besides the various uses enumerated above, is also employed in the manufacture of gauze shades, used by travellers for the protection of the eyes in crossing the snowy passes of Thibet.

The richest produce, however, of the Yak, because the most ample and continuous, is the abundant quantity and rich quality of the milk, and the butter produced therefrom, which is excellent. Curd is also made from it, and is eaten either fresh, or dried and powdered into a kind of meal. The

butter, however, is the chief article. It is preserved in skins and bladders, and the air being thus excluded, it will keep in the cold region which they inhabit throughout the year; so that their owners, after some time tending their herds, and accumulating a sufficient supply, have only to load the cattle, and drive them to a proper market with their own produce, which constitutes throughout Tartary a most material article of trade.

It will thus be seen, that this remarkable animal may claim to rank among the most useful animals which the great and good Creator has given to supply the wants of Man; it being as serviceable to the natives of these elevated and rigorous regions as the Camel is to the Arab, and the Reindeer to the Laplander. They live and thrive and enjoy life where the horse, whose work they perform, would perish; they are their own caterers in winter as in summer; their footing is sure where horses would be lost; they are used for the saddle, for ploughing, and as beasts of burden; their milk is remarkably rich and nutritious; their flesh is good; their hides and hair are both serviceable in various ways; their horns are used as drinking cups; their bones are consumed for fuel; while their flowing bushy tails form a ready-made remedy for the greatest pests of the East, besides being used as ornaments and trappings fit for, and found in, the service of its most luxurious princes.

A bull Yak, of the domestic breed, lived some time in England in the possession of Warren Hastings; a cow of the tamed race lived at Knowsley about two years, but died shortly after removal; a half bred bull, of which a characteristic drawing is given in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1849, was also living at the same time in the possession of the late Earl of Derby, and is still alive at the Belle Vue Gardens, Manchester; and within the last few months about a dozen Yaks have been imported into Paris, for the purpose, if possible, of acclimatation. Capt. Smyth's notes on the Yak are as follows:

"My principal object in visiting Hoondes and Thibet in 1853, was to get one or two wild Yaks, at that time looked upon as almost fabulous animals. The Bhootiahs (a tribe of hill-men, living far in the interior of the Himalayah, and carrying on a trade with the Tartars,) used to bring down to Almorah a great many stories of them, and a few skins; but none, so far as I was aware, had ever been seen by an Englishman, until 1852 one was seen and shot by Mr. Beckett, a sportsman from

That part of Chinese Tartary north of the district of Kumaon and Gurwhal, and of part of Nepal.

Almorah, in Hoondes, just across the passes leading into that country from Almorah. The spoils (head and skin) were brought into Almorah in great triumph, and the event was very much talked about. In 1853 several were shot. I shot six (all bulls), five of them very near the place where Mr. Beckett shot his. A party who went to the Mausurobur lake, about eighty miles to the east of where I was, shot three; and Wilson, the great Himalayan sportsman, shot one or two in Roopshu, 300 or 400 miles to the north-west of where I was, near the great Chumereri lake; and I dare say several have been since shot.

"The nomade Tartars keep immense herds of the domestic Yak; I have sometimes, in passing an encampment of these shepherds, seen hundreds of Yaks, and thousands of Shawl-goats, and a beautiful sight it is. The goats are almost all snow white; the Yaks differ in colour, some are white, pie-bald, or blue, black, &c. They have long hair depending from the flanks, and nearly reaching the ground. The domestic Yak is not nearly so large as the wild one, and the latter is invariably a pure black, mingled with brown. It occasionally happens, however, that tame Yaks wander into the mountains, and meet the wild ones; the result is a hybrid offspring, nearly black in colour, with a white streak on its back, or a white foot, or spot somewhere. These, when grown up, are larger than the tame, but smaller than the wild Yak; and when it is a tame Yak-cow that has got loose, the young one seems to partake of the nature of its father, and the Tartars cannot tame it. The tame Yaks are used as beasts of burden by the Tartars in their trading operations; and they load them with borax, salt, &c., which they send across the Himalayahs, over the high passes, and dispose of to our Bhootiahs, who live on our side of the different passes, and who give them grain, cloth, and other English goods, in exchange. These Yaks (tame and wild) cannot endure the slightest degree of heat. The 'Jhoopoo,' a cross breed between the tame Yak and common cow, are much used as beasts of burden, as they can stand extremes of heat and cold almost equally well, and they are much tamer than even the tame Yak.

"The Yaks (tame and wild) are like all other animals in Thibet, provided with the fleece of 'pushm' wool, as a protection against the severe cold. This 'pushm' is a great article of trade; it almost all finds its way to Cachmere, across Chinese Tartary, where it is manufactured into cloth. The Yak 'pushm' is of course much coarser than the goat 'pushm,' and is not so valuable. The wild Yaks are found in certain localities in different parts of Hoondes and Thibet; the bulls herd separate from the cows, and wander a good deal; while the cows, from what I can learn, chiefly remain about the same place, in of course the very wildest places, where man scarcely ever goes. I never saw any cows, so I cannot speak from personal experience; but the party who went to the Mausurobur lake in 1853, appear to have seen an immense number of them.

"The high mountains to the north of the Milum' and 'Neetee' passes from Almorah to Hoondes, where I shot all my wild Yaks in 1853, are visited by the wild bulls only, between April and September. Cows are never seen there. Some of these mountains rise as high as 24,000 feet above the sea.