Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/210

flanks. The muzzle is partly grey, and the younger males have marks of the same colour on the upper part of the body, whilst a narrow silvery grey stripe runs down the centre of the back. The hair of young yaks is much softer than that of the older ones; they are also distinguishable by their smaller size,^[1] and by handsomer horns with the points turned up, whereas those of the older males are turned more inwards, and are always covered near the root with dun-coloured wrinkled skin.

The Wild Yak (Poëphagus grunniens. Pall.).

The females are much smaller than the males,^[2] and not nearly so striking in appearance; their horns

1. A six-year-old bull is only 9½ feet long, not measuring the tail, and is altogether a smaller animal than the old one.
2. An old cow-yak is 7 ft. 3 in. without the tail; height at the hump 4 ft. 9 in.; girth round the middle of the body 7 ft.; weight one half or one third that of the male.