ZOOLOGY. 



811 



dolphi's whale {B. boreaUs), which wus "captured iu considerable num- 

 bers during- the latter part of July, although the great bhie whale 

 (/>. sibbaldii), generally so numerous," was not then to be seen along 

 the coast. This is attributed to the absence of the Thysanopoda in- 

 enuis, a small crustacean on which the blue whale feeds. "Kudolphi's 

 whale is called 'seje^ or 'cod' whale by the Norwegians, as it ap- 

 l)ears on the coast at the same time as that fish, but its food is 

 also a crustacean of still smaller species than that, which is the chief 

 nourishment of its gigantic relative." It generally visits the coast of 

 Fiumark between May and August, and Gruldberg states that its aver- 

 age length is about 40 feet, but it sometimes reaches a length of 50 feet. 

 "Its color is black, and does not exhibit the bluish tint" seen in the B. 

 musculus, as well as B. sibbaldii. "The sides are spotted with white, 

 and the under j^arts are white with a faint reddish tinge. A new use 

 to which the whales killed at Yado have been lately put is tinning their 

 tlesh, which is said to be wholesome and to find great favor in Catholic 

 countries, where, being fish according to the zoology of the church, it 

 is allowed to be eaten on fast days." {Nature, v. 32, p. 374.) 



Texan Sorses of the Pliocene epoch. — It would seem, from the researches 

 of Professor Cope, that no less than five species of horse-like animals of 

 the genus Equus lived in what is now Texas during the Pliocene period, 

 and some of them appear to have been very abundant. Of these five 

 s])ecies, four also lived at same time in the valley of Mexico, while one 

 is " peculiar to the Pacific coast and basin of Xorth America." Of the 

 characteristic species of the eastern United States {E.fraternus and 

 E. major), only one (the E.fraternus) has been found in the Texas de- 

 posits. {Am. Nat., v. 19, pp. 1208-1209, pi. 37.) 



The Gayal and Oaur. — By the old naturalists, the two largest bovine 

 animals of India known as the gayal and gaur were supposed to be very 

 distinct animals. Of late, however, several have contended that they 

 were merely forms of the same species, one being the wild animal and 

 the other the semi-domesticated form, although others have main- 

 tained that the gayal existed as a distinct species in the wild state. It 

 was urged in 1883, by Mr. J. Sarbo, that there is no such thing as a wild 

 gayal. jS"ow, according to Mr. Blanford, "one most imy)()rtant (;ir- 

 cumstance mentioned by Blyth, on apparently excellent authority, is 

 that the gaur is kept tame in the interior ot^ the Chittagong Ilills, and 

 (as a tame animal) is quite distinct from Bos frontalis. If this is the case, 

 hybrids are very likely to occur, for the gayal breeds freely with the 

 much less allied Zebu, and such hybrids may account for the occurrence 

 of forms intermediate between the gayal and gaur. An in<lication that 

 sucli forms exist is," so far as Mr. Bhinford can see, "the only evidence 

 brought forward by Dr. Kuhn in favor of the gaj al being a domesti- 



