Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/104

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FAUNA
[ch.

lie out on cliffs under the shelter of rocks. They are very wary and hard to approach. The Burmese serow differs from the Himalayan tahr, also a serow, in having reddish, instead of white, stockings. The goral (Urotragus evansi), a small but true goat, has been identified in Upper Burma in comparatively recent years, but is not very common. Goral hang about precipitous ground and utter a peculiar whistle when alarmed.

Fig. 40. Mithan.

Most strange of all is the rare takin (Budorcas taxicolor), only lately encountered in Burma, though his horns were found in a Kachin village thirty years ago. He has been variously described as half goat, half buffalo; as looking like a small buffalo with curly or spiral horns; as a clumsily built ruminant, standing about as high as a small mule; as essentially a serow with affinities to the bovines through the musk-ox and other relationships to the sheep, goat, and