592 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE INDIAN GAUR. [NoV. 4, 



1. On the Gaur (Bos gaums) and its Allies. 

 By W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., F.Z.S., &c. 



[Eeoeived June 18, 1890.] 

 (Plate XLIX.) 



Very little has been added to our knowledge of the classification, 

 habits, and distribution of the wild Indian Bovidce since Blyth, 

 thirty years ago, vncote an excellent account of the " flat-horned 

 taurine cattle of India " \ But an important addition to the oppor- 

 tunities hitherto afforded to residents in London of studying the 

 living animals of this section of the genus Bos has been made by 

 the arrival at the Society's Gardens of a young male ' Gaur ' or 

 ' Sladang,' Bos gaurus, in the autumn of 1889^. Despite many 

 previous attempts to introduce this animal, no other individual is 

 known to have reached Europe alive. Examples of both the other 

 species belonging to the same section have lived in the Gardens. 



The young auimaP now in tlie Gardens at Regent's Park was 

 one of a herd of twenty-four animals captured by the Sultan of 

 Pahang in the Malay Peninsula, as described by Mr. A. II. Wall 

 in the ' Field ' (June 1st, 1889, p. 767). A stockade or kraal, 

 similar in form to that used for capturing Elephants, was constructed 

 on a promontorv, covered with high grass and bushes, on the 

 Pahang river, and the herd of Gaur were driven into the enclosure 

 by about 1500 beaters. The frightened animals charged and 

 fought each other until one half were killed or mortally wounded, 

 the survivors were driven into a long narrow passage leading to the 

 river, and isolated from each other by bamboo poles. 



The section of the genus Bos comprising Bos gaurus and its allies 

 was separated by Hodgson* under the name of Bibos in 1837. It 

 comprises three well-marked forms, and is distinguished by the horns 

 being flattened or subclliiitical in section, especially towards the 

 base, by the tail being short, only reaching the hocks, and by the 

 spinous processes of the dorsal vertebrae being long and those of the 



1 J. A. S. B. xxix. p. 282 (1860). The substance of this paper was subse- 

 quently republished with additions in a series of articles on " Wild types and 

 sources of Domestic Animals," that appeared in ' Land and Water,' vol. iii. 

 1807, pp. 287, 345, 395, 422, 476, 630. 



2 See P. Z. S. 1889, p. 447. 



3 This animal is now (Nov. 1890) in excellent health and condition, and has 

 grown nearly to his full stature. 



^ ,T. A. S. B. vi. p. 747 ; see also J. A. S. B. x. p. 447, and xvi. p. 706. Blyth, 

 in his ' Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum of the Asiatic Society,' 1863, 

 p. 160, adopted the generic tei-m Gavcews, Hamilton Smith. In this he was 

 followed by Jerdon (Mammals of India, p. 301). I cannot find any publication 

 of the uame Gavmus as a generic term by Hamilton Smith. In Griffith's 

 ' Cuvier,' iv. p. 406, and v. p. 375, the Gayal is described under the name of Bos 

 qavceus, and placed in the subgenus Bison. Hodgson subsequently, in 1847 

 (J. A. S. B. xvi. p. 705), separated the Gayal from Bihos, and made it the type 

 of a distinct genus Gavceus, and both genera were admitted in Horsfield's 

 ' Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum of the Hon. East India Company.' 



