Gayal 



33 



uniformly coloured, individuals are not unfrequently observed more or less 

 spotted with white, while a tew are wholly white. 



Although very massively built, the gayal, at least in the semi-domesti- 

 cated state, stands very considerably lower at the shoulder than the gaur. 

 The horns of a wild hull measured by Mr. Blanford had a length of 14 

 inches, and the same basal girth. In a domesticated specimen measured by 

 Mr. Rowland Ward the length along the outer curve of the horn is given 

 as 15 inches, the basal girth 1 1|^ inches, and the interval between the tips 



,f 



Fig. 4. — Bull Gayal. From a photograph of a specimen in the Calcutta Zoological Gardens. 



of the two horns 26| inches. In a second example, oi which the horn- 

 length is only 12^7 inches, the basal circumference is 27! inches. 



Distributioji. — For a long period there was great doubt whether the gayal, 

 or mithan, as it is called in Assam and Chittagong, existed at all in the 

 wild state ; and the opinion has indeed been expressed that the animal is 

 nothing more than a domesticated breed of the gaur. Mr. Blanford, 

 however, records a typical skull in the private collection ot Mr. A. O. 

 Hume, obtained by the late Mr. W. Davison in Tenasserim, and 

 identified by the latter as belonging to a wild animal killed by himself in 

 Tenasserim, between Lemyne, 66 miles south by east ot Moulmein, and 

 Tenasserim town. This accordingly appears to fix Tenasserim as lying 



