It is found thinly scattered along the whole of the southern slopes of the Himalayas, from Cashmere down past Sikkim, to the Burmo-Chinese frontier, but apparently does not cross the snow-line, probably on account of absence of forest on the northern side. Precipitous rocks and their accompanying caves it likes, but forest it must have, and the thicker and more tangled the better. A gloomy damp ravine below a waterfall, the sides mere walls of rock and the bed choked with rank vegetation, is the place where its tracks are oftenest found. The beast itself is rarely seen. It appears to live generally alone; a female with a three-quarter-grown young one may be found together, but rarely two full-grown beasts. Major Greenaway saw three serow in one day, in the Sindh Valley in 1871, two of them together, and one alone, and got shots at all of them, but only bagged one. But this was exceptional luck. Most men who have shot for some years in the hills, have seen one or two serow, but rarely more, and getting a shot at one is generally looked upon as a lucky fluke. Besides being scarce, serow are uncommonly wary, and are said by natives to travel for miles if disturbed.
The serow gallops down hill
Colonel Kinloch is one of the very few people who have laid themselves out to hunt serow, and his experiences are scarcely encouraging, though Ward says that in the winter months serow can be found with comparative ease in the Sindh Valley, in Cashmere. The serow seems, like sambur, to be nocturnal in its habits, and its discordant scream is often to be heard after dark in Gurwhal, where it is comparatively plentiful.
The serow’s chief accomplishment is the way that he can gallop down a steep hill, and as he invariably takes that course when disturbed, he can be easily driven, provided the ground is well known. All writers agree that a wounded one will charge. Kinloch mentions having heard of an unwounded male charging when its mate was shot, and Ward gives a graphic account of an adventure he had with one. Mr. O. Shaw shot a serow with a white mane in Cashmere. There are two more varieties of this capricorn described in Sterndale’s ‘Natural History of India.’ The first is the Arakanese capricorn, found in Arakan, Pegu, the Malayan Peninsula, and Sumatra.
This is a brown beast with a yellow bay throat, black forelegs, and bay hind ones. The description is rather vague, and Blyth’s note—‘This species varies much in colour from red to black, and the black sometimes with a white nape, or the hairs of the nape may be white at the base only’—does not explain matters very clearly to an unscientific reader. The second variety is the Thibetan capricorn, discovered by Abbé David, in Eastern Thibet.
This differs from the Indian serow by the uniform blackish brown of the upper parts, tending to ferruginous on the thighs, and the red colour in place of the grey on the lower parts of the legs.
XLIII. TAKIN (Budorcas taxicolor)
Native name: ‘Takin,’ ‘Takhon’