universal fly-flapper in the great houses of the Lower Himalaya, in China, and in India itself.
A wild race still exists; it is so large that there is a saying in the mountains that the liver of a wild yak is a load for the tame. Certain it is, that the skins brought home by Colonel Charlton, one of which is in the Crystal# Palace, bespeak a noble animal, not of the gigantic stature of of the Gour and Gayal, of the Arnee, or the Cape Buffalo, but a fine sporting-looking beast, with every indication of pace and power. Even the domestic animal, when free in the mountain pastures of Jura, is full of fire, his eye flashing, his head high in the air, his tail thrown forward over his back or carried aloft like a standard with the long silky hair depending; galloping with high horse-like action; and, when excited by rivalry, charging his antagonist with the velocity of an avalanche.
The native region of the yak is the northern side of the Himalaya, from Ladak, through Thibet, to northern China; on the south-side of the range he does not come lower than 10,000 feet, and has been seen as high upas 16,000, where the
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pasture is necessarily of the scantiest. His hardy nature suffices itself with the fare of a goat. The wild yak is of a beautiful dark ruddy brown, passing into black; the long silky fringe which ornaments his flank almost touching the ground, reminds one of the Musk-ox, his congener in the Arctic circle.
The yak was known to the ancients. Ælian speaks of him, calls him Poephagus: Marco Polo knew him in 1275: and then there is a long in- terval of silence until we come to Pallas and Gmelin in the last century.
And what is a yak? The woodcut explains his outward form to a certain extent. You will observe that he is a species of cattle, not an artificial breed, but a well-defined species; domesticated indeed, but derived from the existing wild animal which is still hunted on the northern slopes of the Himalaya. Poephagus grunniens, the Grunting Ox, because his voice is the voice of a hog — a peculiarity which the domestic race have preserved to perfection. He delights in many names, he is called the Sarlyk, the Svora Goy, and the Chauri Gun, as well as Yak, and the cross- bred offspring of yak and zebu is called the Dzo. Mr. Brian Hodgson, who from his long residence in Nepaul had unparalleled opportunities of collecting information about the natural history of the mountains, asserts that the yak inhabits all the loftiest plateaux of High Asia, between the Altai and the Himalaya, the Beelut Jag, and the Peling Mountains.
The form of the yak is horse-like in the contour of the withers and back, which, combined with the short and well-compacted loins, adapt him in a singular manner for the saddle. The setting on of his tail is peculiarly equine, and when in moderate action he carries it with the gay and jaunty air of an Arab courser. Great depth
of chest, short muscular legs, well-knit thighs,