External Characters of Ruminant Artiodacli/la. 109 



ever that may he, it may be claimed tliat llic coloration of 

 zt'hus aiul European cattle affords no 8ii[»[)ort to the view 

 that they belonj; to diMtinct sj)ecie.s. 



\'oice. — Blytli and those who Iiavo copied him attach great 

 importance to tlie voice as a criterion of distinct specific origin 

 between B. indi'cua and U. taurus. He and Blanford 

 described the voice of tho former as a grunt utterly unlike 

 the "lowing" or bellowing of European domesticated cattle. 

 This is only half tho truth. Zebus, on the whole, are silent 

 animals, but now and again they utter an abbreviated or 

 prolonged grunt recalling that of a yak or American bison. 

 But they also call with a loud voice which may be periiaps 

 described as somewhat intermediate between the "moo" of 

 an ordinary cow and the hoarse "baa" of a sheej). The 

 sound is distinguishalile from that of a cow or bull of l^ritish 

 cattle, but I have heard a zebu calf, fretting tor its mother, 

 call her with a voice very like that of an English "shorthorn'^ 

 calf. 



The voice is certainly a criterion of kinship in wild 

 animals ; but to what extent it is to be trusted in domesticated 

 forms appears to me to be doubtful. It is admitted, 1 take it, 

 that donusticattd fowls are the unmixed descendants of the 

 Bankiva jungle-fowl (Ga/lus galhis). Nevertheless, the crow 

 of the latter is generally, within my experience, distinguish- 

 able from that of the former, though unmistakably like it : 

 and different breeds of domesticated fowls often differ to a 

 certain extent in voice, thus attesting the variability, though 

 limited, of this character. Domesticated dogs, too, differ 

 from wolves in having added the bark to the howling voice 

 common to both ; yet the wolf or the jackal — it matters not 

 which in the present connection — is usually accepted as the 



the living forms and are thoee wliose horns come nearest in shape to 

 tliose of gnus. This author's relinnce on the shapes of horns as tests of 

 aflinity led him into few more uiiintel]if,nble errors than this, excepting 

 only his employment of the curvature of the hums, a manifestly useless 

 character for tfie puniose, as a basis for the cla.'sifica(ion of the JJovida^ 

 in his' Catalogue of Ungulates.' With all respect to I'mf. Luunberg, I 

 am quite sure that hi.s o}«inion about Conuocluetts and It'cs is unsound. 

 1 he anatomical evidence that gnus are specialized hartebei-sts (Lubalis) 

 and that the cattle are specialized Tragilaphines appears to me to be con- 

 clusive. The view that close afllnity between the JJovincs and Tragela- 

 phines, atte.-ted more particularly by the Anoa, the primitive Asiatic 

 buffalo, is quite in keepnig with Lydekker's above-quoted statement that 

 the earliest representatives of tho o.v-tribe are related to the butliiloe.% 

 which in some respects are the moot primitive of living forms of Bovinsu. 



