ORDER RUMINANTIA, 391 



The other or Common Arnee is also a very large animal, 

 though nearly a foot lower at the shoulders than that last 

 mentioned. It is not much less in weight ; the head is 

 smaller, the body longer, the tail reaching to near the heels, 

 and the hide more scantily covered with hair. These are 

 much more common, live gregariously in woody swamps or 

 plains, occasionally floating in whole droves down the 

 Ganges, seemingly asleep, until the current lands them on 

 some island, or on the bank : boats are sometimes endan- 

 gered by sailing in among them unawares. They are saitl 

 to plunge underwater, and raise aquatic plants with their 

 horn to the surface, where they feed on them, while driving 

 with the stream. An animal of this kind drifted down 

 to near Shaugur Island, in 1790, and was shot by the crew 

 of the Hawkesbury Indiaman, towed alongside, and hoisted 

 in ; the meat weighed three hundred and sixty pounds per 

 quarter, exclusive of the head, legs, hide, and entrails, 

 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 march to Patna, by the inland 

 road. On discovering the red dresses of the soldiers, they 

 threw out their usual signals of hostility, and galloped off; 

 then suddenly wheeling round, came in a body, as if they in- 

 tended to charge, and their horns overtopping the heads, 

 rendered it doubtful whether they were not mounted 

 by some hostile force ; part of the column, therefore, 

 halted and formed, and the animals suddenly struck by the 

 glittering of the arms, stopped, turned tumultuously round, 

 and dashed into cover *. 



These anecdotes shew the scepticism of some continental 

 naturalists, respecting the existence of wild buffaloes in 



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

 under the name Arnee, and that even the genuine Urus of the An- 

 cients, still exists in the remote temperate forests of Asia. 



