TIBETAN TAKINS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13978, 13 August 1909, Page 3

TIBETAN TAKINS.

NEW HORNED ANDIAL. The Zoological Society of London, at the end of Juno last, received and placed on exhibition at the Wardens in Regent's Park a hue young example of the takin, which, next to the okapi, is the rarest and least known of the ruminants. The takin . comes somewhere between goats and ant-e----lopes, and its nearest ally is probably the serow. Takins are- heavily built and powerful animals, an adult male standing three and a half feet high at the shoulder. They are thickly clad with long and coarse dark-coloured hair ; which forms a thick fringe round the neck. The muzzle is hairy, the profile convex and sheep-like, and the tail short. The horns are powerful, sharp weapons, in the adult nearly meeting across the forehead, where they rise from the skull, as. in t-Jio African buffalo, then bending out-wards and backwards to end in sharp points. - Very little is known of their habits, as they are natives of the highlands of Tibet, and have been seen by very few white sportsmen, whilst no example has hitherto reached Europe alive. The Zoological Society owes its present specimen to a corresponding member of the society, Mr John Claude White, CLE., late political leader of Bhutan and Tibet. Mr White interested the Maharajah of Bhutan in the matter, but great difficulty was experienced owing to the inaccessible haunts of the animal. The skull and skin of a specimen were sent to the British Museum a few years ago, and Mr Lydekker founded a new race on them, calling it Budorcas taxicolor wJiitei. THe example which has now reached the gardens belongs to the same • race, and was captured by the Maharajah's men in North-West Bhutan. Special arrangements for its care on the sea voyage were made, and it has reached London apparently in good health.