ORIGIN OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



221 



regarded as an intermediate between the domesticated and the 

 wild cattle of the Indian type. 



The banteng, or native ox of Java, extending also well into the 

 continent in the region of Burma, is a close relative of the gaur 

 and the gayal, but nearer the common or domesticated form. It 

 exists both domesticated and wild. All these species have a 

 much better opportunity to linger indefinitely in their natural 



Fig. 41. The yak, or wild ox of Tibet 



state than had similar species in Europe, because of the immense 

 stretches of hills and unbroken wilderness lying along the base 

 and up the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. Accordingly 

 we are not surprised at being able to find here truly wild cattle. 

 Still higher up in the highlands of Tibet, fourteen to twenty 

 thousand feet above the sea, is the yak (Bos grunniens), that 

 hardiest of all the cattle kind, delighting in the wildest hardships 

 of that most forbidding country. He is a true ox in all essential 

 particulars, not very well endowed with vision but with the 



