. Natural history. Zoology. THE HOOFED MAMMALS. 137. Fig. 74.—The Arabian Camel. especially on. inclined roads, they are almost useless. The Bactrian camel, which is doubtless a native of Asia, is much better suited for traversing high mountains and enduring cold than the Arabian species. Regarding the two- humped camels of the neighbourhood of Yarkand, it has long been a disputed point -whether these are really wild, or whether they are the descendants of an originally domesticated race. Something towards clearing up this question has been done by Major O. S. Cumberland, who had the good fort
. Natural history. Zoology. THE HOOFED MAMMALS. 137. Fig. 74.—The Arabian Camel. especially on. inclined roads, they are almost useless. The Bactrian camel, which is doubtless a native of Asia, is much better suited for traversing high mountains and enduring cold than the Arabian species. Regarding the two- humped camels of the neighbourhood of Yarkand, it has long been a disputed point -whether these are really wild, or whether they are the descendants of an originally domesticated race. Something towards clearing up this question has been done by Major O. S. Cumberland, who had the good fortune to shoot one of these animals. Its skin and skull were sub- mitted to Mr. Blanford, who reports that they be- longea to a two-humped camel, in which the humps were represented by large tufts of hair. The skull agreed fairly well with that of a domestic Bactrian camel (0. hactrianns), and differed from that of the single-humped Arabian camel (C. di-oinedarius). Whether, however, s)ich differences, as presented by the former, were indicative of the exist- ence of a distinct race, the materials at hand were insufficient to deter- mine. In regard to these camels in their native heme. Major Cumberland writes as follows :—" The nabitat of the wild camel is the Gobi steppe from Khotan to Lob-Nor. Except when snow lies on the ground, these animals may be met with here and there along the old bed of the Yarkand and Tarim Rivers, which they for the pools of brackish water that are to be found here and there. But as soon as the snow falls they move off into the desert, as if then independent of the water-supply. They pre- fer the snow, I imagine, as being less salt than the water, although it also is impregnated to a certain extent soon after it falls. The camel is very shy in its habits, and, so far as I could ascertain, has never been caught or domesticated. The natives told me that no horse in the country could catch the camels in the deep sand of the region they
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