1SG0.] On tie 'Flat-horned Taurine Cattle of S. E. Asia. 285 



The humped cattle are unknown in an aboriginally wild state ; and 

 I am strongly of opinion that they will prove to be of African rather 

 than of Asiatic origin, however ancient their introduction into 

 India ; for no fossil or semi-fossil remains of this very distinct type 

 have as yet been discovered in any part of Asia, where the only 

 established fossil Taurine is the Bos namadictjs of the Nerbudda 

 deposits, which is barely (if at all satisfactorily) distinguishable 

 from the European B. pbimo genius (or true TJrus of Caesar) * It 



land, they march in single file to water, the bulls leading; so, too, when 

 threatened, they take advantage of the inequalities of the ground and steal 

 off in their hollows unperceived, the bulls, if attacked by clogs, bringing up 

 the rear." 



In the Swan Biver colony, both horses and liorned cattle have gone com- 

 pletely wild, and Buffaloes in the vicinity of Port Essington. Vide Leichardt, in 

 Journ. Hoy. Geogr. Soc. XVI, 237. 



(What are the wild cattle of Albania noticed by Count Karact in Journ. Hoy. 

 Geogr. Soc. XII, 57 ? Also, what were those hunted by the ancient monarchs 

 of Assyria, as represented in the Nineveh sculptures ? What, indeed, were the 

 TJri Sylvestres which haunted the great forests that surrounded London in 

 the time of Fitzstephen, i. e. about 1150 A. D. ?. The late Jonathan Couch 

 remarked, in his c Cornish Fauna' (1838), that — "The ancient breed in the west 

 of England was called ' black cattle,' from the very dark appearance of its coat, 

 almost like velvet : circumstances in which it seems to have differed from the 

 races of the north of England, which were white)." 



* I refer more especially to the later or post-pliocene (pleistocene, or even 

 recent) type, the remains of which are found in almost modern lacustrine depo- 

 sits, where likewise occur those of Bison etjrop.zeus of the existing type, as 

 distinguished from the wide-horned peiscus type. This later form of pbimo- 

 genitts (which is that originally so named by Bojanus) absolutely resembles the 

 most finely developed examples of certain (unimproved) domestic races of large and 

 very -long-horned cattle, except that the size is fully one- third larger, as remarked 

 by Professor Nilsson. In like manner, Mr. Hodgson notices, of the Indian 

 Buffalo, that — " The wild animals are fully a third larger than the largest tame 

 breeds [in India], and measure from snout to vent 10J ft. and 6 to 6J ft. high at 

 the shoulder." (J. A. S. XVI, 710). The older type of pbimogenitts occurs in the 

 pliocene drift, together with Bison pbiscits ; and (so far as I have seen) the 

 size of the skull is smaller than in the other, but the horns are still larger, and 

 curve round more towards each other at the tips ; moreover (if I mistake not), 

 they are both thicker and longer in the bull than in the cow, whereas in the 

 more modern type (as in domestic cylindrical-horned cattle, whether humped 

 or humpless,) they are thicker but shorter in the bull, longer and more slender 

 in the ox and cow. With the exception of the Indian Buffalo to some extent, 

 I know of no other true bovine in which the horns are not both thicker and 

 longer in the bull! In the old type of pbimogenitts, the horn-cores are some- 

 times enormous. I have measured a pair which were 3 ft. long and 19 in. round 

 at base. Another of the same linear dimensions, but 18 in. in circumference at 

 base, is noticed in the Ann. Mag. If. H. Vol. II (1838), p. 163. I have draw- 

 ings of a fine frontlet of perhaps a cow of this race, which was found in the 

 gravel when digging the foundations of the houses of parliament. Of the 

 later race, compare the noble Swedish bull-skull figured in Ann. Mag. N. H., 

 2nd series, IV, 257, 259, with the superb Scottish cow-skull in the British 



