3-021-606 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Musk Deer at the Zoological Society's Gardens, 1869. '...a young doe of the kustoora or musk animal (Moschus moschiferus...probably, the first of its species that has ever been brought alive to Europe...The musk-deer is characteristic of the elevated Thibetan region, and excels all the other mountain ruminants...in its power of traversing steep precipices...in Colonel Markham's journal, entitled " Shooting in the Himalayas", the Colonel remarks that "this little persecuted animal would probably have been left undisturbed to pass a life of peace and quietness in its native forests, but for the celebrated perfume with which it is provided...the musk...renders it to the Himalayan mountaineers the most valuable of all game, no animal is so universally sought after in every place that it is known to inhabit". The young female now in the Gardens is as tame as possible, permitting itself to be handled, and following the superintendent about for food...The female has no trace of [the "musk-pod"], nor does she give forth the slightest musky odour. Perhaps it is as well that the individual now received is of the feminine sex, as an old buck might possibly be a little too highly odoriferous for the olfactories of some visitors to the gardens'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.