Like many other Himalayan and Tibetan animals this Antelope first became known to science from the researches of the great Indian naturalist and antiquarian, Bryan Houghton Hodgson, British Resident at the capital of Nepal. Hodgson described it in 1846, in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ as Procapra picticaudata, and gave a very recognizable figure to accompany his letterpress. He wrote of it as follows:—
“The exceedingly graceful little animal, which is the subject of our present description, is called by the Tibetans Rágóá, or Góá simply, and they allege that it is found generally throughout the plains of middle and eastern Tibet. But those plains, it must be remembered, are, for the most part, broken by deep ravines or low bare hills, and it is in such situations, more especially, that the Góá dwells, either solitarily or in pairs, or at most in small families, never in large flocks. The species is said to breed but once a year, and to produce ordinarily but one young one at birth, rarely two; and it is added that it browses rather than grazes, preferring aromatic shrubs and shoots to grass, of which latter, indeed, its habitat is nearly void. I have not heard that the Góá is ever tamed, but it is killed for the sake of its flesh, which is esteemed excellent, and is free from all caprine odour, even in the mature males.”
Hodgson also entered into the structural peculiarities of this Antelope, which he described at full length. It is quite evident that, as pointed out by him, the present Gazelle, as also the two allied species (G. przewalskii and G. gutturosa), present certain points of difference from the rest of the group, and that there was, therefore, some justification for Hodgson’s proposal of the generic term “Procapra,” although we do not think it necessary to use it. These three species agree among themselves in the females not possessing horns, in the absence of anteorbital glands, and the corresponding absence of a fossa in the skull, in having no brushes on the knees, and in several other characters, which show that they are really more closely connected to each other than to the more typical Gazelles. Nevertheless we think that, on the whole, it is best to include them in the genus Gazella, as no one of these characters is absolutely confined to them. Thus G. subgutturosa, often, though wrongly, placed with them, has no horns in the female, while in other characters it is a true Gazella, and several species besides these three are without knee-brushes, while the anteorbital fossæ in others are so shallow as to be practically non-existent.
Fig. 54.
Skull and horns of the Tibetan Gazelle.
(P. Z. S. 1867, p. 245.)
Soon after his discovery of the Goa, Hodgson forwarded specimens of it to the British Museum, and the species was included in Gray’s catalogues as Procapra picticaudata. Under this name also Gray figured a skull and pair of horns of this Gazelle in 1867, in order to point out its differences from the allied Asiatic form, Gazella gutturosa. This figure (fig. 54, p. 73), by the kind permission of the Zoological Society of London, we are now able to reproduce.
In October 1849, Sir Joseph Hooker, as related in his ‘Himalayan Journals’ (ii. p. 157), met with the Goa feeding on the short grass near the Cholamoo Lake in Sikim, at an elevation of 17,000 feet above the sea-level, and in other adjoining localities on the Donkia Pass between Sikim and Tibet. Through his kindness and that of his publishers we are enabled to introduce the illustration of this striking scene (fig. 55) prepared for his well-known work.
