80 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. III. 



which he describes as remarkable for his elegant form 

 as for his gigantic size, being the most beautiful of 

 his species he had ever seen. Its head was majestically 

 armed with two immense horns, which retired from 

 each other, with the utmost symmetry, to form two 

 perfect semicircles, their summits being suddenly bent 

 forwards, leaving a space of four feet eight inches be- 

 tween them : they had been made to grow in this figure 

 by the owner, who highly prized the beast. These oxen, 

 trained thus, appear to be changed in their very nature ; 

 although, of course, the most ungovernable are selected 

 for this purpose. Being driven on against the enemy, 

 they become furious at the sight of the adverse host ; 

 rush on the men, trample them under their feet, gore 

 them with their horns, and pursue them in their flight, 

 till they have deprived them of life. They are also 

 employed in defence of flocks and herds.* Naturally 

 courageous, they are not only capable of repelling wild 

 beasts, but they even venture to attack them ; so that 

 a hyaena, however hungry, will never come near a flock 

 guarded by two or three of these formidable animals, 

 a number of which, as our traveller asserts, will even 

 make head against a lion. 



(100.) That animals, naturally of a most fierce dis- 

 position, may, in some measure, be domesticated, is well 

 known ; and, perhaps, no instance upon record is more 

 remarkable than that which is now, or was -lately, be- 

 fore the public, in the exhibition of M. Van Amburgh. 

 It would be very interesting to know by what means the 

 natural craving for blood, in such beasts of prey as 

 lions and tigers, has been overcome, or kept in abeyance, 

 by this ingenious person. But, although the accom- 

 plishment of so difficult a task is highly to his credit, 

 and appears to Europeans a perfect novelty, it has long 

 been practised, with nearly equal success, upon the 

 royal tiger, by the fakirs, or mendicant priests, in 

 various parts of Bengal.-)- These appear to follow 



* Le Vaillant's Second Travels, vol. ii. p. 178. 

 t Williamson's Oriental Sports, vol. ii. p. 34. 



