220 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



back. The color is brown, often tawny white. The horns are 

 truly monstrous, being occasionally, according to good authority, 

 as long as thirty-nine inches each, with a basal girth as high as 

 nineteen inches. This animal is exceedingly wary, avoiding 

 cultivated or open country of any kind, and, as has been said, 



Fig. 40. The gaur, or great wild ox of the highlands of India 



is never domesticated. He is a true wild ox in every partic- 

 ular, as large, undoubtedly, as the Bos primigcnus of Europe 

 ever was. 



The gayal, sometimes called mithan, is a semidomesticated 

 and near relative of the gaur, inhabiting the hilly lands of north- 

 eastern India. It is smaller than the gaur, and, being lower at 

 the withers and higher at the hump, stands with his back nearly 

 level. He runs wild in the more remote districts, and is to be 



