228 Memorandum on the Gaur and Gayal. [March, 



wicke's, is not the Gaur, be of more value than the positive assertion 

 of Major Roughsedge who killed his specimen in its native woods, 

 and sent its spoils to that eminent zoologist*. 



It next remains to determine what species it is to which the skull 

 exhibited by Mr. Evans belongs ; — a matter far more difficult than 

 to prove the label correct upon the other. It is possible that it be- 

 longed to the Gaur, but to a specimen of a different sex from that in 

 the museum, and that described in the Zoological Journal ; that the 

 differences, however strongly marked, may be merely sexual. But, 

 as Mr. Evans has stated, there is another animal of this country, 

 called the Gayal, the Bos frontalis of naturalists, with some of whose 

 characters it seems to agree. 



The Gayal was mentioned so early as the year 1790 in an account 

 of the mountaineers of Tiprah, published that year in the Researches 

 of this Society, and there called the cattle of the mountains. There 

 are two sorts, a tame and wild variety ; the former of which was 

 then an essential article among that people at their feasts, whether of 

 a warlike, civil or religious nature. But Mr. Colebrooke, who 

 published a description of it in the 8th volume of the Researches, 

 appears to think it had been noticed by Knox in his historical rela- 

 tion of Ceylon ; and imperfectly described by Captain Turner in his 

 journey through Butdn. Mr. Colebrooke's paper is compiled from 

 accounts of the Gayal drawn up by Drs. Roxburgh and Buchanan, 

 and Messrs. Elliott, Macrae, Bird and Dick. The only mention 

 made in this paper of the forehead of the Gayal is by Dr. Buchanan, 

 as follows : — " The head at the upper part is very broad and flat, 

 and is contracted suddenly towards the nose, which is naked like 

 that of the common cow. From the upper angles of the forehead 



* There is also another account of the Gaur by Major Hamilton Smith, 

 but apparently that gentleman never saw the animal, and has compiled his re- 

 marks from the foregoing descriptions. He thinks it possible that " Pliny's 

 ^Ethiopian bull with blue eyes might refer to this species ;" (Plin. 1. 8. c 21 ;) 

 whose description is thus given by Dr. Philemon Holland, in his translation 

 of the works of that author, a book almost as great a curiosity as the animals 

 he describes:—" But the most fell and cruell of all others of that country be 

 the wild buls of the forrest, greater than our common field buls, most swift, of 

 colour brended, their eyes grey or blewish" (colore fuluos oculis ceruleis) ,• " their 

 hair growing contrary ; their mouth wide and reaching to the ears : their homes 

 likewise hardly moveable ; their hide as hard as a flint, checking the dent of any 

 weapon whatsoever, and cannot be pierced : all other wild beasts they chase 

 and hunt, themselves cannot be taken but in pitfalls : in this their wildness and 

 rage they dy and never become tame." 



