94 Oxen 



less distinctly triangular in section at the base ; marked by irregular 

 transverse rugosities for about two-thirds of their length, but becoming 

 more or less smooth and polished towards the tip ; situated low down on 

 the forehead of the skull, considerably below the plane of the occiput, and 

 frequently receding from the forehead, which is more or less distinctly 

 convex in the larger living torms, but Hat, or nearly so, in the smaller ones, 

 as well as in many ot the extinct species ; their upper border generally 

 concave, and the tips more or less inclined inwards. The premaxilhr of 

 the skull reach upwards to join the nasal bones ; and there are thirteen 

 pairs of ribs. Size large to small. 



In the skeleton the neural spines of the dorsal vertebra-, although 

 narrower, have much the same form and relations as in the typical group, 

 but that ot the seventh cervical is rather taller. 



The buffaloes are the most aberrant of the wild cattle, none ot them, 

 so tar as known, breeding either with domestic cattle or with the members 

 of the bison group. The African buffalo (with its local races) differs so 

 remarkably from the Indian representative of the group, that they might 

 almost be assigned to distinct sub-genera. But the anoa, which is very 

 generally referred to a genus, or sub-genus, by itself, is so intimately con- 

 nected with the Indian buffalo through the Philippine species, that there 

 seems no justification for its sub-generic separation. 



Distribution. — At the present day restricted in the wild state to the 

 Ethiopian and Oriental regions, but occurring in the Plistocene deposits 

 ot Europe and Algeria. 



I. The African Buffalo — Bos caffer 



Bos differ, Sparrman, A.'. Svctiska J\'t. Ak. Haiidl. vol. xl. p. 79 (1779) ; 

 Sundevall, //;/(/. for 1844, p. 15:5 (1846); Huet, Bull. Soc. Acclim. Paris., 

 vol. xxxviii. p. 338 (1891) ; Flower and Lydekker, Study of Maiiiuials., 



