2 1 o Leaves from an Indian Jungle. 



macroceros. Sprung from a common stock, environment 

 has had its usual effect, and, though practically identical, 

 the two varieties display slight differences of horn-struc- 

 ture and habit, which are apparent enough to the-ordinary 

 observer. 



Bos Bubalus macroceros is the long-horned species found 

 throughout the Brahmaputra Valley, the Terai, and the 

 Sundarbans. He it is who boasts the finer head, and is 

 the subject of so many tales of ferocity and unprovoked 

 attack amid the close and impenetrable mazes of his 

 swampy retreats in the abovenamed parts of North- 

 Eastern India. Of this creature we find record of a single 

 horn in the British Museum measuring 78 J inches. If we 

 allow one foot for the breadth of skull across the forehead, 

 this gives a total ' sportsman's measurement ' from tip to 

 tip of 169 inches, or over 14 feet ! 



Speiroceros, meaning curly-horned, is the variety inhabit- 

 ing the southern and eastern portions of the Central 

 Provinces and neighbouring wild tracts of country. 



Macroceros carries a head usually considerably longer 

 -than his congener of more southerly habitat especially in 

 the case of the cows and his horns are generally straight- 

 er ; while that of speiroceros has an appearance of greater 

 stoutness of build, and the horn is often set on at a rather 

 different angle. That the buffalo is essentially a reed- 

 haunting jungle-boring old pachyderm it needs but little 

 perspicacity to discern. Those great plough-like diverg- 

 ing horns, sweeping back in easy curve, were plainly 

 intended by Nature to divide the hampering tangle of his 

 jungly grassy home, as well as to assert his authority over 

 a ponderous and placid harem, and guard him from treach- 

 erous foes. It is not therefore the decreasing necessity 

 for such use in the thinner jungles of the Central Provinces, 



