34G HISTORY OF 



Lis air is wilder ; and he carries his head lower, and nearer the 

 ground ; his limbs are less fleshy, and his tail more naked of 

 Lair ; his body is shorter and thicker than that of the cow kind ; 

 his legs are higher ; his head smaller ; his horns not so round, 



sixty pounds per quarter, exclusive of the head, legs, hide, and entraila, and 

 the whole could, therefore, be scarcely less than two thousand pound, though 

 the ship's butcher pronounced it not above two years old. 



A herd of these animals was observed by a column of troops, some years 

 ago, on the n ii'ch to Patna, by the inland road. On discovering the red dres- 

 ses of the soldiers, they threw out their usual signals of hostility, and gal- 

 loped off; then suddenly wheeling round, came in a body, as if they intended 

 to charge, and their horns overtopping the heads, rendered it doubtful whe- 

 ther they were not mounted by some hostile force ; part of the column, 

 therefore, halted and formed, and the animals suddenly struck by the glitter- 

 ing of the arms, stopped, turned tumultuously round, and dashed into cover.* 



These anecdotes show the scepticism of some continental naturalists, 

 respecting the existence of wild buffaloes in India, to be quite misplaced. 

 Formerly, this race was occasionally reduced to a precarious domesticity, by 

 order, and for the amusement of, the native princes ; but now they use the 

 largest of the domestic breeds : these are mounted by their keepers and 

 brought into the arena to engage in battle with the tiger, who is almost in. 

 variably defeated. The race of the common arnee is also, it would appear, 

 domesticated in the eastern states : a wliite variety is found in Tinean, and 

 other islands of the Indian Archipelago. On the coast of Cochinchina, and 

 the Malayan peninsula, this race appears to predomiuate : they are of very 

 great bulk, with the horns, when seen in front, forming a true crescent ; 

 their skulls are the usual arnees of European museums. Although the skin 

 of the white variety be rosy, the muzzle and edge of the lips are jet black, 

 the eyes are large and dark, the snout longer and narrower than ia the 

 black-skinned buffalo, and their height at the shoulder is not five feet, owing 

 to the legs being short. Those of S;am, both wild and domesticated, are ashy 

 gray, larger than an ox, the muzzle much prolonged, and the horns very long 

 forming a cresent above the head. This variety has a shrill weak voice, and 

 the domesticated are more easily managed by children than by grown men. 



'J'he Domestic Buffalo. {B. Bubalun.) Whether or not the arnee of Bengal 

 be the stock from which the domestic buffalo is descended, certain it is that 

 the species now under consideration, is still found in a wild state, as well as 

 domesticated, and that in all countries, sufficiently uninhabited and afl'ording 

 the requisite conditions, the black-skinned domestic animal will soon supply 

 a wild breed. This occurs whenever local circumstances are favourable, even 

 iu the kingdom of Naples, and we might draw an inference from this fact 

 alone, that the species with crescent horns, are distinct from the present, al- 

 though both have breeds which have received the yoke of man ; nor if it 

 were proved that a prolific intermediate race exist, produced by the inter, 

 mixture of both, would it fully determine that both form only one original 



■* It is not impossible, that more than one species is confounded under the 

 nrime Arnee, and that even the genuine Urus of the ancients, still exists i i 

 tiie remote temperate forests of Asia. 



