THE ANNA LS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[NINTH SERIES.] 

 No. 12. DECEMBER 1918. 



XLIV. — On some External Characters of Ruminant Artio- 

 dactvla. — Part VI. The Bovinse. By ii. I. Pocock, 

 F.R.S. 



Subfamily Bovine. 



I retain this subfamily as a matter of convenience only, 

 being unacquainted with a single character of importance by 

 which it may be distinguished from the Tragelaphinae. On 

 the other hand, close affiliation between the two is attested 

 by a large number of common characters. Indeed, Anoa 

 depressicornis, the most primitive form of Boviiue, quite 

 commonly shows the typically Tragelaphine white spots and 

 patches on the face, throat, and feet, which must be regarded 

 as strong evidence of near affinity with the Tragelaphine 

 stock, as I pointed out in 1910. 



For close upon a century there has been great divergence 

 of opinion regarding the status of the groups into which the 

 species of the Bovinse naturally fall. In 1827 Hamilton 

 Smith split up the Linnaean genus Bos into a number of sub- 

 genera — Bison, Bibos, etc. By Gray, who added Poephagus 

 to the series, these were granted generic rank. In this 

 opinion he was followed by Rutimeyer, and more recently by 

 Matschie. English authors, like Blanford, Flower, and 

 Lydekker, on the contrary, retained the genus Bos in a 

 comprehensive sense, giving subordinate rank to the others. 

 In 1910 I followed that course, being unable to find evidence 

 from the characters I was then working at for defining the 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 9. Vol. ii. 



