GAVAUS. 483 
bamboo-clad spurs of the Satpura range. My experience of the animal 
is limited to the Seonee district, where it is restricted to the now closely 
preserved forests of Sonawani in the south-east bend of the range, and a 
few are to be seen across occasionally, near the old fort of Amodagarh, 
on the Hirri river. 
It is also more abundant on the Pachmari and Mahadeo hills. On 
the east of the Bay of Bengal it is found from Chittagong through 
Burmah to the Malayan peninsula. It was considered that the gaur 
of the eastern countries was a distinct species, and is so noted in Hors- 
field’s Catalogue, and described at some length under the name of Azbos 
asseel ; but it appears that all this distinction was founded on the single 
skull of a female gaur, and is an instance of the proneness of naturalists 
to create new species on insufficient data. He himself remarks that 
when the skin-was removed it was evident that the animal was nearly 
related to Gaveus gaurius, or, as he calls it, Bibos cavifrons. Mr. G. P. 
Sanderson shot a fine old male of what he supposed to be the wild 
gayal, and he says: “I can state that there was not one single point of 
difference in appearance or size between it and the bison of Southern 
India, except that the horns were somewhat smaller than what would 
have been looked for in a bull of its age in Southern India ;” and this point 
was doubtless an individual peculiarity, for Blyth, in his ‘ Catalogue of 
the Mammals of Burmah,’ says: ‘‘ Nowhere does this grand species attain 
a finer development than in Burmah, and the horns are mostly short 
and thick, and very massive as compared with those of the Indian gaurs, 
though the distinction is not constant on either side of the Bay of 
Bengal.” 
Jerdon supposes it to have existed in Ceylon till within the present 
century, but I do not know on what data he founds his assertion. 
DeEscRIPTION.—I cannot improve on Jerdon’s description, taken as it 
is from the writings of Hodgson, Elliot, and Fisher, so I give it as it 
stands, adding a few observations of my own on points not alluded to 
by them :— 
“The skull is massive; the frontals large, deeply concave, surmounted 
by a large semi-cylindric crest rising above the base of the horns. There 
are thirteen pairs of ribs.* The head is square, proportionately smaller than 
in the ox; the bony frontal ridge is five inches above the frontal plane ; 
the muzzle is large and full, the eyes small, with a full pupil (? iris) of a 
pale blue colour. The whole of the head in front of the eyes is covered 
with a coat of close short hair, of a light greyish-brown colour, which 
below the eyes is darker, approaching almost to black; the muzzle is 
greyish and the hair is thick and short; the ears are broad and fan- 
shaped ; the neck is sunk between the head and back, is short, thick, 
* The true bison has fourteen pairs of ribs—R. A. S. 
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