External Characters of Ruminant Artiodactyla. 103 
short duration. It may not indeed date back beyond the 
Dutch occupation of Java in the seventeeth century. 
In the second place, the theory seems to me to be inade- 
quately supported on the zoological side. Judging from the 
banteng I have seen, I should say there is nothing distinctly 
zebu-like about them except the sloping croup and the sexual 
dimorphism in colour. Apart from these characters, which I 
suspect are primitive in the Bovine (cf infra, p. 108), banteng 
exhibit no noticeable resemblances to zebus, except such as are 
shared by many European cattle above suspicion of zebu blood 
in their veins. Banteng, indeed, are remarkably “ taurine” 
in style apart from their white stockings, white rumps, elevated 
withers, and the roughness of the naked skin of the inter- 
cornual area in adnit bulls. And these characters, be it 
noted, also differentiate them from zebus, which, in my expe- 
rience of many individuals of the best-defined breeds, never 
show a trace of them. This is not what one would expect if 
the theory of the relationship between the two types were 
sound. Mr. Lydekker certainly suggests that the white 
fetlock-rings seen in some zebus may be the remains of the 
white stockings in the banteng; but whatever be the value of 
this suggestion, it is discounted in the question at issue by 
the presence of this ring in some English park cattle claimed 
to be of pure aurochs descent. 
Mr. Lydekker also attempts to explain the hump so charac- 
teristic of zebus as the concentrated remains of the tissue 
covering in the banteng the high spinous processes of the 
thoracic vertebrae, suggesting that it was left behind, so to 
speak, when according to the theory these bony processes 
became reduced during the evolution of the zebu from that 
species. I do not think this theory of the origin of the hump 
need be discussed until the supposition upon which it rests, 
that the vertebree in question have been shortened, is supported 
by more evidence than is at present forthcoming. For 
myself, I should be inclined to compare the hump of the zebu 
to the accumulation of tissue which may be seen just in front 
of the withers in many well-fed European bulls (see, for 
example, pl. xiii. of Mr. Lydekker’s volume), and which was 
quite perceptible in a bull banteng recently exhibited in the 
Zoological Gardens. However that may be, it cannot in my 
opinion be seriously claimed that the hump of the zebu and 
the elevated dorsal crest of the banteng are evidence of. 
affinity between the two. The external appearance ‘of the 
animals, in short, affords no support to the view that the 
banteng is the ancestor of the zebu. 
It may be recalled that the difference in voice between 
