Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 24, 2025
Gorals are pretty little animals of the size of the chamois. The species which we killed on the Snow Mountain can probably be referred to Naemorhedus griseus, but I have not yet had an opportunity to study our specimens carefully. Unlike the serows these gorals have blackish brown tails which from the roots to the end of the hairs measure about 10 inches in length.
Gorals and serows belong to the subfamily Rupicaprinae which is an early mountain-living offshoot of the Bovidae; it also includes the chamois, takin, and the so-called Rocky Mountain goat of America. The animals are commonly referred to as "goat-antelopes" in order to express the intermediate position which they apparently hold between the goats and antelopes.
Shooting the animals from across the river was rather an unsportsmanlike way of hunting but it was a very effective method of collecting the particular specimens we needed for the Museum series. The distance was so great that the gorals were unable to tell from where the bullets were coming and almost any number of shots might be had before the animals made for cover.
We hunted gorals with dogs on the Snow Mountain for in this particular region they could be killed in no other way. There was so much cover, even at altitudes of from 12,000 to 15,000 feet and the rocks were so precipitous, that a man might spend a month "still hunting" and never see a goral. They are vicious fighters, and often back up to a cliff where they can keep the dogs at a distance.
We returned to camp at noon bringing joy with us, for, as my wife had remarked the day before, "We will soon have to eat chickens or cans." Heller hunted the gorals unsuccessfully the following day and we left on December 23, camping at night on a flat terrace beside a stream at the end of a moist ravine.
This invisibility, combined with the fact that the Snow Mountain gorals lived on almost inaccessible cliffs thickly covered with scrub spruce forest, made "still hunting" impossible. In fact, Baron Haendel-Mazzetti, who had explored this part of the Snow Mountains fairly thoroughly in his search for plants, had never seen a goral, and did not know that such an animal existed there.
Although Abertsen was decidedly skeptical as to the accuracy of the report he spent two days hunting and with his shotgun killed two gorals; moreover, he saw twenty-five others. We examined the two skins and realized at once that they represented a different species from those of the Snow Mountain. Therefore, when we left Teng-yueh our first camp was at Hui-yao.
In the case of the gorals, our Expedition obtained at Hui-yao such a splendid series of all ages that we have an unequaled opportunity for intelligent study. Serows are entirely Asian and found in China, Japan, India, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. On the Snow Mountain we found them living singly at altitudes of from 9,000 to 13,000 feet in dense spruce forests, among the cliffs.
There was a strange fascination about those mountains, and I thrilled with the thought that for twelve long months I was free to roam where I willed and explore their hidden mysteries. Both gorals were fine old rams with perfect horns. Their hair was thick and soft, pale olive-buff tipped with brownish, and the legs on the "cannon bones" were buff-yellow like the margins of the throat patches.
Hardly had we drawn back when a yell from the other hunter brought us again to the edge of the cliff just in time to see a second goral dash into the forest a good three hundred yards away in the very bottom of the gorge. Rather disappointed we continued along the ridge and Hotenfa made signs which said as plainly as words, "I told you so. The gorals are not on the peaks but down in the forest.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking