

BOVID& 3 6i 



The first group includes the Buffaloes (genus Bubalus), chiefly 

 characterised by their more or less flattened and angulated horns, 

 which incline upwards and backwards, with an inward curve 

 towards their tips, and are placed below the plane of the occiput, 

 or vertex of the skull. The premaxillae reach to the nasals, and 

 the vomer is peculiar in being so much ossified as to join the 

 posterior border of the palate. The back has a distinct ridge in 

 the region of the withers ; and the forehead is frequently convex. 

 Oriental and Ethiopian region, and Celebes. 



The most generalised representative of this group is the small 

 Anoa (B. depressicornis) of Celebes, the type of the genus Anoa or 

 Probubalus, which has the same cranial structure as in the more 

 typical Buffaloes, to the young of which (as was pointed out by 

 the late Professor Garrod) it presents a striking resemblance. Its 

 colour is black ; and the short and prismatic horns are directed 

 upwards from the forehead. In the Pliocene Siwaliks of India 

 there occur the remains of larger Buffaloes (B. occipitalis and 

 B. acuticornis) closely allied to the Anoa, but with longer and more 

 distinctly angulated horns. The still larger B. platyceros of the 

 last-named deposits, in which the horns are wide -spreading and 

 much flattened, appears to be in some respects intermediate between 

 the preceding and following forms. The typical Indian Buffalo 

 (Bos buffelus), which has been domesticated over South-East Asia, 

 Egypt, and Southern Europe, is, in the wild state, a gigantic animal 

 with enormous horns. These horns are longer, more slender, and 

 more outwardly directed in the female than in the male ; and in 

 the former sex may have a length of more than 6 feet from base 

 to tip. They are widely separated at their bases, the forehead is 

 very convex, and the ears are not excessively large, and have no 

 distinct fringe. These Buffaloes frequent swampy and moist dis- 

 tricts in several parts of India, but it is in many instances difficult 

 to decide whether they belong to really wild or to feral races. 

 Very large skulls, specifically indistinguishable from those of the 

 existing form, occur in the Pleistocene deposits of the Narbada 

 valley in India ; while an allied, if not specifically identical form, 

 occurs in the Pliocene of the same country. There is some doubt 

 whether B. antiquus of the Pleistocene of Algeria is most nearly 

 related to the Indian or to the African species. 



In Africa two species of Buffalo are recognised by Sir Victor 

 Brooke, 1 namely the large B. coffer, occurring typically at the Cape, 

 but said by this writer to range to Abyssinia, and the smaller 

 B. pumihis, which seems to have a very wide distribution. The 

 skulls of both these forms are shorter than in the Indian species, 

 while the horns are also shorter, much more curved inwardly, and 

 more approximated on the forehead. In the large typical form of 

 1 Proc. ZooL Soc. 1873, p. 474. 



