250 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



No. I. Remarks ou Box sonduicKs ( the Tsiue or Bautiug ) 



and on Bos sonda/'vi/.^ jioiicn. 



The upper photograph is that of a bull Tsine sliot by Jlr. A. A. 

 Porter some nine j'ears ago in the Me Wong district about eighty 

 miles north-west of Paknampoh in Central Siam. This bull, un- 

 doubtedly aged, judging by the deei) corrugations in the horns, diSeri'd 

 from anj' previously recorded specimens, in that the black, or dark 

 brown, skin of the wjiole body was spotted with white, each spot the 

 size of a sixpence. The head and part of the skin were sent to llie 

 British Museum, and on this material Lydekker based his subspecies 

 Bos gijiulidcus porteri. 



h\ lOU'J, Mr. Klwes shot a similarly marked bull in the same 

 area, and the head of this animal is shown on the right hand in tiie 

 lower illustration. This also is an aged aniuial, the teeth wurn tlat and 

 both horns blunted and corrugated. 



Major Evans (Big Game Shooting in Burma) states that he 

 has seen black bulls, and it seems to be a generally accejited fact that 

 olil bulls of this species are often gray and souietimes black (in the 

 Javanese i-ace usually black) altliough Rowland Ward ( Records of Big 

 tiame, 18'J9), wrongly states that in the Bui'mese variety " old bulls 

 retain the reddish tint of the cow throughout lite ". 



Had Major Evans struck herds of black Tsine, he would un- 

 doubtedly have said so, but he evidently found these black bulls on the 

 same ground and among herds of Tsine of the ordinary colour, viz., 

 re<l<lish-yellow or liglit chestnut, a colour rather iigliter than that ot 

 the (Siamese Baiking Deer. ' ' 



Messrs. El wes and Porter obtained their s])otted bulls on the 

 same ground as where the}- shot numerous animals ol the usual colour, 

 and this year Mr. St. John Yates writes me that he has obtained a 

 spotted bull fronl another herd in that district. 1 have not compared 

 skulls of Me Wong animals with any from Burma, but can find no 

 sensible difference in any cranial dimensions among the three heads 

 shown in the pliotograph, aud two of which were yellow bulls; nor do 

 these diti'er in any way from the skull of a grey-laced hill-bull obtained 

 by the writer in the llaheng district last year. The measurements ac- 

 cord with those given by Blanford of a male skull from Borneo. 



Change of colour in the male, due to age, being recognized, and 

 and there being no record of black or spotted cows, Lydekker's sub- 

 species Ji. s. porlori ap])ears to be minecessary. 



Major i']vans has recorded tiie habits of this animal very fully 

 as regarils Burma, and 1 can bear out his stateujent that in the 

 hills Tsine are easily stalked, having approached to within 10 yards 



JULK.N. .NAT. lUt'I. 30C. SIAM. 



