1837:] Memorandum on the Ganr and Gayal. 229 



proceed two thick, short, horizontal processes of bone, which are 

 covered with hair. On these are placed the horns, which are smooth, 

 shorter than the head, and lie nearly in the plane of the forehead. 

 They diverge outwardly, and turn up with a gentle curve. At the 

 base they are very thick, and are slightly compressed, the flat sides 

 being toward the front and the tail. The edge next the ear is rather 

 the thinnest, so that a transverse section would be somewhat ovate. 

 Toward their tips the horns are rounded, and end in a sharp point." 

 Here the flatness and breadth of the forehead, and the sudden con- 

 traction towards the nose, correspond pretty exactly with those pecu- 

 liarities in Mr. Evans's specimen; but nothing can be made of 

 the description of the horn*, &c. ; the whole having evidently been 

 taken from the tame variety of this " cattle of the mountains." And 

 there is no part of any animal which undergoes greater changes by 

 domestication than the horns of the Ruminantia. 



In the seventh volume of the Linneean Transactions there is also a 

 description of the Gayal by Mr. Aylmer Bourke Lambert, accom- 

 panied by a plate, but which also was taken from the domestic variety. 



The last account published of the Gayal lb in the afore-mentioned 

 paper in the Zoological Journal by General Hardwicke. It is accom- 

 panied by a plate of the head and horns of the Asseel Gayal, or True 

 Gayal. General Hardwicke says — " Of the Gayal (Bos Gayceus) of 

 Colebrooke, eigbth volume of the Asiatic Researches, there appears 

 to be more than one species. The provinces of Chittagong and 

 Sylhet produce the wild, or as the natives term it, the Asseel Gayal, 

 and the domesticated one. The former is considered an untameable 

 animal, extremely fierce, and not to be taken alive. It rarely quits 

 the mountainous tract of the S. E. frontier, and never mixes with 

 the Gobbah, or village Gayal of the plains. I succeeded in obtaining 

 the skin, with the head of the Asseel Gayal, which is deposited in the 

 museum of the Honorable the East Indian Company, in Leadenhall 

 Street, and from which the drawing was taken, which accompanies 

 that of the horns of the Gaur." 



On refering to the above-mentioned drawing you will perceive the 

 same general appearance of face as the specimen of Mr. Evans 

 exhibited ; the same flatness of forehead, which in the skull is probably 

 a concave surface ; the same marked ridge between the horns ; and 

 the same projection of the orbits, and sudden contraction of face 

 towards the nose, to which he drew your attention in his paper. 



Having thus laid before you all the authorities I have been able to 

 collect, I think you will consider that I have proved mv position 

 2 H 



