I860.] On the Flat-homed Taurine Cattle of S. E. Asia. 283 



the British islands*).— 2. Bootheeium ; extinct (founded on two 

 specific races, one of which is the Ovibos Pallantis of de Blainville, 

 and the other is the Bos bombifrons of Harlan). — 3. Bison (the well- 

 known broad-fronted and shaggy Bisons of Europe and N. America, 

 and formerly of N. Asia) . — 4. Poephagus (the Yak of high Central 

 Asia). To this Bisontine division pertain the only indigenous Bovine 

 quadrupeds of America. 



II. Taurine (with the exception of the humped cattle suited to 

 a temperate climate and restricted to mountainous countries within or 

 near the tropics). Subdivided into — 1. Zebus (the Zebu or humped 

 cattle of the hotter regions of Asia and Africa). 2. Taurus (the 

 humpless cattle with cylindrical horns).- — 3. Gav^us (the humpless 

 cattle with flattened horns, peculiar to S. E. Asia). 



III. BubaJine (the flat-horned, thinly clad and thick-hided, wal- 

 lowingf cattle of Asia and Africa). Comprising only — 1. Bubalus 

 (the Buffaloes, including the Anoa of Celebes) . 



According to the views so very ably expounded by Mr. C. Darwin, 

 all the species of one genus have a common origin in the depths of 

 time, and we may ascend in the generalization to any extent, needing 

 only unlimited lapse of time for the ever accumulating development 

 of small variations in any particular direction, under the unconscious 

 guidance of the law of Natural Selection. Species, as he maintains, 

 are only strongly marked varieties, and varieties he designates as in- 



* As also of the Caribou, or present barren-ground race or variety of the Rein 

 Deer ; though I am far from being satisfied that this barren-ground race differs 

 in any respect from the wild Rein Deer of Lapland, or of the ' tundras' of Arctic 

 Siberia ; while I much suspect that the large race or variety of Rein Deer which 

 is ridden by the Tungusi and other Siberian tribes, (and to the backs of 

 which the bales of goods are annually transferred, in Mantchuria, from those 

 of two-humped Camels,) to be similarly identical with the Woodland Caribou of 

 North America. The subject of the races of Rein Deer will be more fully treated 

 of in the sequel. 



As the above is passing through the press, I learn, from Lord Wrottesly's 

 Address to the British Association at Oxford (June 27th, 1860), that Dr. H. 

 Falconer, " aided by Col. Wood, of Glamorganshire, has recently extracted from 

 a single cave in the Grower peninsula of South Wales, a vast quantity of the ant- 

 lers of a Rein Deer (perhaps of two species of Rein Deer), both allied to the 

 living one. These fossils are most of them shed horns ; and there have been 

 already no fewer than 1,100 of them dug out of the mud filling one cave." 

 —Athenceum, June 30th, 1860, p. 890. 



It is remarkable that Uesus arctos of the major continent should, iu America, 

 be restricted in its range to the Arctic barren-grounds. 



t The true Bisons wallow during the summer. 



2 e 2 



