256 Observations upon the Affinities 



After taking for granted that the Bos urus is likewise found 

 on Mount Caucasus, Mr. de Baer advances the opinion, that 

 the Gaour of India, which has but lately been discovered, in 

 the mountains of Mine Rout, near the Bay of Bengal, is like- 

 wise a variety of the zubr. The gaour we know only from 

 the imperfect descriptions given by Mr. Breton and Major 

 Hamilton, (who names the species Bos Gaurus), of a male 

 specimen killed in 1816, as well as through that of Major 

 Roughsedge, who saw a specimen killed in 1818. But though 

 the gaour be very nearly allied to the Bos urus, in point of 

 structure, yet its horns are said to be flattened, (whereas they 

 are entirely round in the Bos urus), its hair, from the knee 

 downwards, is of a dirty white, and that which covers the 

 trunk is stated to be as short and shining as that of the seal. 

 Then the smell of musk, so striking in the Bos urus, has not 

 been observed, and the animal has not been found in a marshy 

 locality, nor in the valley. Thus I do not see why, in this 

 little advanced stage of our knowledge of that animal, we are 

 justified in considering it the same species as the Bos urus, 

 particularly as it seems to deviate more from it, than the Bos 

 americanus. 



We may, therefore, with much probability, consider the 

 zubrs of the forest of Bialowicza, as the only survivors of a 

 species which was formerly found, in great numbers, in 

 the vast swampy forests of the whole of middle Europe, and 

 perhaps Great Britain, whilst no other wild bovine animal 

 inhabited the same tract within the historical times. 



(To be continued). 



Art. II. Outlines of a new arrangement of Insessorial Birds. 

 By Edward Blyth, Esq. Curator to the Ornithological Society. 



Having been induced to postpone the publication of a new 

 Systema Avium, in consequence of a recent connection war- 

 ranting the anticipation of being able, in due time, to obtain 

 several present desiderata, I now submit the following sum- 



not there detect the least trace of the animal. The description of his jour- 

 ney is just publishing at Stuttgart and Tubingen : ' Reise auf dem Kas- 

 pischen Meere, und in dem Kaukasus, in den Jahren 1825 & 1826, von E. 

 Eichwald, K.R. Staatsrath, Th. i. Abth. 1 & 2. 1834 & 1837, 8vo. I may 

 also remark, in addition to what I have stated above, that in the report I 

 have read on Mr. de Baer's article, there is nothing said about the smell of 

 musk having been observed in the skin sent by General Rosen. 



