bos cArurt. 228 



one of a herd of twenty-four animals captured by the Sultan of 

 Puhang in the Malay Peninsula, as described by \Ir. A. H. Wall, in 

 the ' Field' (June 1st, 1889, p. 767). A stockade or kraal, similar 

 in form to that used for capturing elephants, was constructed on 

 ;i promontory, covered with high grass and bushes, on the Pahang 

 river, and the herd of Gaur were driven into the enclosure by about 

 1 ,500 beaters. The frightened animals charged and fought each other 

 until one-half were killed or mortally wounded, the survivors were 

 driven into a long narrow passage leading to the river and isolated 

 from each other by bamboo poles. 



The section of the genus Bos comprising Bos (/auras and its allies 

 was separated by Hodgson* under the name of Bibos in 1837. It 

 comprises three well-marked forms, and is distinguished by the horns 

 being flattened or sub-elliptical in section, especially towards the base, 

 by the tail being short, only reaching the hocks, and by the spinous 

 processes of the dorsal vertebrae being long and those of the 

 I umbra vertebrae short, the change in length taking place abruptly, 

 so that there is along the anterior half of the back, from the shoulders, 

 a high ridge which terminates suddenly about balfway down the 

 trunk. This character, however, is less marked in Bos sondaicus 

 than in the other two species, and the flattening of the horns is less 

 conspicuous in females than in males, and is sometimes not to be 

 detected in cows of the species just named. 



All the species have a peculiar and characteristic coloration, the 

 old males being dark brown or almost black, the females and younger 

 males, paler or reddish-brown, the legs from just above the knee and 

 hocks downwards white or whitish. 



* J. A. S. B., vi., p. 747; see also J. A. S. B., p. 447, aDd xvi., p. 706. Blyth, in 

 his • Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum of the Asiatic Society,' 1863, p. 100, 

 adopted the generic term Gavceus, Hamilton Smith. In this he was followed by 

 Jerdon (Mammals of India, p. 301). I cannot fiud any publication of the name 

 Gavceus as a generic term by Hamilton Smith. In Griffith's ' Cuvier,' iv., p. 40r;, 

 and v., p. 375, the Gayal is described under the name of Bos gavceus, and placed in 

 the snb-genus Bison. Hodgson subsequently, in 1847 (J. A. S. B., xxi., p. 705), 

 separated the Gayal from Bibos, and made it the type of a distinct genus Gavceus, 

 and both genera were admitted in Horsbeld's ' Catalogue of the Mammalia in the 

 Museum of the Hon. Eaat India Company.' 



