384 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



Their extreme hostility to red colours is often remarked 

 in India : the same antipathy is observed at the Cape, and 

 in Europe. A general officer, now living, relates, that 

 while a young man, he was employed in surveying in Hun- 

 gary, and happened to use a small plane table, the back of 

 which was covered with red morocco ; as he walked from 

 one station to another, he sometimes carried it with the 

 paper against his breast, and the crimson colour in front. 

 On a sudden, he perceived at a considerable distance a 

 herd of grazing buffaloes throw out signs of defiance, and 

 come down in full gallop towards him with their tails up, 

 and evincing the most tumultuous frenzy. Not suspecting 

 the cause, he paused and dropped his hand, when the 

 whole troop stopped and looked about, as if at a loss ; he 

 went on, and unconsciously raising the table again, brought 

 the red colours in sight. They set off a second time towards 

 him, but guessing the cause, he turned the obnoxious co- 

 lours towards his body, and was suffered to proceed unmo- 

 lested. 



The Cape Buffalo. (B. Caffer.) This species is designated 

 among the Hottentots by the name of Qu'araho. It is dis- 

 tinguished by dark and rugous horns spreading horizontally 

 over the summit of the head in the shape of a scalp, with 

 the beams bent down laterally, and the points turned up. 

 They are from eight to ten inches broad at the base, and 

 divided only by a slight groove, dark coloured, extremely 

 ponderous, cellular near the root, and five feet long, mea- 

 sured from tip to tip along the curves. The incisor teeth 

 are almost always loose in the gums of the adult animal 

 whose height is about five feet six inches at the shoulder 

 and the length from nose to tail, about nine feet; the legs 

 are short and strongly knit ; the dewlap is rather consider- 

 able ; the ears large, hanging open ; on each side of the 

 chin and nether jaw, there is a beard of stiff hairs ; the 

 hide extremely thick, hard and black, almost naked in old 



