Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/213

 and begins grazing with them; in the Suma-hada mountains, however, they are so confident of security as not always to observe the precaution of posting sentinels, and they may be very easily stalked. After their morning meal they usually lie down among the rocks, where they remain till evening.

The report of a gun startles a herd, and they go off at full speed in an opposite direction, but after running a little way they stop to see where the danger lies, giving the sportsman ample time to reload. The Mongols told us that if they placed some conspicuous object, such as a piece of clothing, to attract their attention, they would remain motionless while the hunter stalked them without difficulty. I myself successfully tried the experiment by suspending a red shirt on the top of a ramrod, which I stuck into the ground, and in this way arrested the attention of a frightened herd for more than a quarter of an hour.

They are very tenacious of life, and I have known them run, with a bullet through the chest and protruding entrails, for several hundred yards, and then only drop down dead. If one of a herd fall lifeless, its companions remain beside it, regardless of the hunter's approach. I never heard them utter a sound. The Mongols told us that the coupling season began in August, but I do not know how long it continues. While it lasts the males fight furiously, making terrible use of their long horns, a pair of which weigh 36 lbs. and upwards. The period of gestation is about seven months, at the end of which