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Show 1 9 0 5 .] OX THE GORAL FOUND IN BURMA. 3 1 1 3. Notes on the Goral found in Burma. By Major G. H. E v a n s * . [Received September 2, 1905.] The Himalayan range in Assam gives off a succession of spurs southward to form a tract of mountainous and, in many parts, almost impassable country extending into Arakan and Burma, and inhabited by numerous wild tribes. That portion of this tract lying between Assam and Manipur to the north, Chittagong and Tipperah on the west, Arakan on the south, and Burma on the east, is now known as the Chin-Lushai Hills. These so-called hills vary in their altitude from 1000 to 10,000 feet. I was employed in what was known as the Southern Chin Hills from November till June 1889-90, and during my stay visited several Chin villages. Like many others who have visited these people, I came to the conclusion that Chins generally, and their chiefs in particular, have one hobby at least, viz., collecting skulls. Outside and inside the villages, skulls were to be seen stuck on posts or kept in the houses. The finest collection I met with was in the house of a Boungslie chief, whose tribe is thus called by the Burmans, from the method in which they dress their long hair. The whole hair is done up in a large knot placed well forward on the top of the head, almost on the forehead, and round this ball of hair is wound, round and round, usually a white turban with a blue stripe through the centre. In the chief's house was a collection of skulls, excellent as regards the number and variety. The heads ranged from those of elephants to palm-civets, and I doubt if there are many museums which could excel the collection of monkey skulls, at least numerically. The chief enjoyed the reputation of having been a mighty Nimrod in his youth, and 1 was informed that he had shot practically every head in the collection. I noticed one splendid gaur skull, three or four fine mythun or gayal, several sambar and serow, also some small heads which I concluded must be goral. Game throughout the hills was scarce, a matter not to be wondered at, inasmuch as every Chin had a gun of some sort, and in addition was always trapping and snaring. I was assured that the Goral heads had been obtained in the hills, but that now the animals were very scarce. I had no opportunity of verifying at this time the presence of Goral in these hills, and any attempt to do so would have been a matter of considerable risk owing to the most unfriendly attitude of the people. Many months later I happened to be in a Burmese village some hundred miles distant, but on the confines of the South Chin Hills, and there discovered in a house the skull of a Goral identical with those above mentioned. On enquiry from the Burmans I learned that it had been obtained from some Chinboks, another tribe of Chins near Loungshe in the Yaw country. As * Communicated b y R. L y d e k k e r , F.Z.S. P roc. Z o ol. S oc.- 1905, V o l . II. No. X X II . 22 |