152 



ZOOLOGY. 



[Part IT. 



some varieties of the humped ox, which have been in- 

 troduced from the opposite continent of India, Ceylon 

 has probably but one other indigenous ruminant, the 

 buffalo.^ There is a tradition that the gaur, found 

 in the extremity of the Indian peninsula, was at one 

 period a native of the Kandyan mountains ; but as Knox 

 speaks of one which in his time " was kept among the 

 king's creatures " at Kandy^, and his account of it 

 talhes with that of the Bos Gaurus of Hindustan, it 

 would appear even then to have been a rarity. A place 

 between Neuera-eUia and Adam's Peak bears the name 

 of Gowra-eUia, and it is not impossible that the animal 

 may yet be discovered in some of the imperfectly ex- 

 plored regions of the island.^ I have heard of an in- 

 stance in which a very old Kandyan, residing in the 

 mountains near the Horton Plains, asserted that when 

 young he had seen what he behoved to have been a 

 gam-, and which he described as between an ell?; and a 

 buffalo in size, dark brown in colour, and very scantily 

 provided with hau-. 



Oxen.- — Oxen are used by the peasantry both in 

 plougliing and in tempering the mud in the wet paddi 

 fields before sowing the rice ; and when the harvest is 

 reaped they " tread out the corn," after the immemorial 

 custom of the East. The wealth of the native chiefs 

 and landed proprietors frequently consists in then- herds 

 of bullocks, wliich they hire out to their dependents 

 during the seasons for agricultural labour ; and as they 

 akeady supply them with land to be tilled, and lend the 

 seed which is to crop it, the further contribution of this 

 portion of the labour serves to render the dependence of 

 the peasantry on the chiefs and head-men complete. 



The cows are worked equally with the oxen ; and 



^ Bubaliis biifFelus, Gray. 

 ^ Historical Relation of Ceylon, ^-c., 

 A.D. 1G81. Book i. c. 6. 



3 KJELAAET, Fauna Zcylan., p. 87. 



