The Mammals of Yarkand*

Abstract

THE unfortunate death of the lamented naturalist, Stoliczka—one of the most promising members of the Indian Geological Survey — must be fresh in the memory of many of our readers. After a successful campaign in Yarkand in company with Sir D. Forsyth's late expedition, he did not live to return to India, but perished of exhaustion amongst the snows of the Himalayas. We are pleased to hear that his Indian friends have undertaken the preparation of a work intended as a memorial of him which will embrace an account of the extensive collections of natural history amassed during his last journeys. Mr. W. T. Blanford has just issued a preparatory list of the mammals of which specimens were obtained in Yarkand and the adjoining countries. They are referable to forty-two species, mostly belonging to groups characteristic of the elevated districts of the Palæarctic region. No new types were discovered, but amongst the novelties are species of Field-voles, Hares, and Pikas (Lagomys), all very distinctive of the regions traversed by the expedition, and adding largely to our knowledge of the fauna of Western Tibet and Eastern Turkestan. The larger mammals were originally better represented, but after Dr. Stoliczka's death, many specimens appear to have been removed from the collection. Of a fine series of twenty-two wild sheep from Kashgar, only eleven are now left, and not one of these has fine horns. Moreover there remain skeletons of wild sheep and ibex in the collection, of which the heads have entirely disappeared. Mr. Godwin Austen has invited public attention to these unpleasant facts in another column of this journal. One would have supposed that in the case of a naturalist thus perishing in the performance of his arduous duties, no pains could have been too great to protect the specimens in procuring which he had sacrificed his life. On the contrary, however, advantage appears to have been taken of his untimely death to rob his collection of the choicest specimens. We can only trust that, attention having been called to the fact, restitution will be made, and the missing heads and horns promptly restored to the mutilated specimens now deposited in the Imperial Museum at Calcutta.