130 Oxen 



In this place it may be well to mention that two other buffaloes have 

 been described from the Philippines. The first of these is the Biibalus 

 mainitensis, of Heude,^ from the island of Mindanao, at the south-eastern 

 corner of the group ; but since its describer himself states that " ce hiijfle est 

 actiiellement cntiercmcnt domest'iqiic^' its claim to rank as a species cannot, 

 for the present at least, be admitted. 



The second, which is reputed to come from the island of Busuanga, 

 in the Calamianes sub-group, has been named by Dr. Nehring B. 

 moellendorji} But a gentleman who has resided for a long period in the 

 Calamianes informed Dr. Meyer" that there are no wild buffalo on any 

 of the islands of that group. 



Habits. — ^The tamarau seems to be distributed all over Mindoro, 

 although chiefly found in the neighbourhood of marshes and near the 

 mouths of the rivers. Professor Steere, by whom the British Museum 

 specimen was procured, gives the following account : ^ — " The animals are 

 buffalo-like in habits ; they come out upon the sandy reaches of the rivers 

 at night to fight and to escape the insects, and gather together in bands of 

 some size. They separate by day, going two or three together, or solitarily, 

 into the low bottoms at the back of the streams, feeding on the wild sugar- 

 cane, and making their way to the little forest streams and pools, in which 

 they bathe in the water and the mud like the buffaloes. The domestic 

 buffilo, the only beast of burden here, has escaped from its owners in the 

 island of Mindoro in large numbers, and is now found wild, and is called 

 cimmarone. The tamarau and these come into frequent conflict ; the 

 tamarau being said to attack the buffaloes at first sight, and, though much 

 smaller, being quicker and stronger, to drive the buffaloes back." 



Mr. J. Whitehead, in a letter to Mr. O. Thomas, furnishes the following 



1 Mem. Hist. Nat. Etnp. Clnnois, vol. ii. p. 205 (1S94), iii. p. 45, pi. x. (1896). 



- SB. Gcs. uatiirf. Berlin, 1894, p. 185. 



^ Op. lit. p. 13. 



■• Owing either to a misprint or an error, the animal is termed the " tamaroii " in the original. 



