[NO. 455. BUDORCAS TAXICOLOR.]
The Takin.
NATIVE NAMES.—Takin or Takhon, pronounced nasally.
HABITAT.—The Mishmi hills, Assam, Thibet.
| Budorcas taxicolor. |
DESCRIPTION.—"The takin is a large, heavily-built ruminant, about 3 feet 6 inches high at the shoulder and 6 feet in total length. The external peculiarities of the animal are: first, peculiar angularly curved horns in both sexes; second, the enormously arched chevron; third, the very great development of the spurious hoofs, which are obtusely conical, and about 1½ inches in length in a small specimen.
"The colour of the adult in one stage is fulvous throughout, some of the hairs being dark tipped. Legs, tail, muzzle and dorsal stripe black.
"Old bulls appear to become of an uniform brownish-black at times, but the colour doubtless depends on the season, as each hair has the basal two-thirds yellow, and its apical third black, and the young its hair brown with a dark tint. The takin, pronounced takhon (nasally), is found just outside British limits in the Mishmi and Akha hills, north of Assam. It extends into the mountainous parts of Chinese Thibet, whence it has lately been procured by the adventurous Abbé David, and has been described by the great French naturalist A. Milne-Edwards, in his work 'Recherches sur les Mammifères,' with some osteological details which were hitherto wanting, but no more than the limb bones appear to have been obtained.
"The horns of the takin have been considered to bear some likeness to those of the gnu (Catoblepas), but I fail to trace a resemblance. Hodgson's description of the horns is as follows:—
"'The horns of the takin are inserted on the highest part of the forehead. The horns are nearly in contact at their bases. Their direction is first vertically upwards, then horizontally outwards, or to the sides, and then almost as horizontally backwards. The length of each horn is about 20 inches along the curves, but their thickness is great. The tail is about three inches long.'