I860.] On the Flat-horned Taurine Cattle of S. E. Asia. 293 



mountaineers, they have been so far influenced as to vary considerably 

 in colour, whatever may be the cause of such variation. Thus, amongst 

 the Meris, Lieut. Dalton tells us that — " The Mifhun (or Gayal) is 

 the only species of homed cattle possessed by the Meris. It is rather 

 a clumsy-looking animal in make ; but a group of MWhuns grazing 

 on the steep rocky declivities they seem to love, would be a noble 

 study for Landseer : some are milk-white, some nearly black, some 

 black and white, and some red and white."* Elsewhere, the herds of 

 tame Grayals shew generally a few individuals a little pied or splashed 

 with white, with not uncommonly a white tail-tuft ; and they cannot 

 be expected to vary much further than this, unless subjected to new 

 influences, and above all to that of selection in breeding under 

 human superintendence. In the Mishmi hills wild Gayals are still 

 numerous ;f but we know little of this species excepting on the out- 

 skirts of its range, where its native hills impinge on British territory. J 

 The Bev. J. Barbe, B. C. M., who seems to have penetrated further 

 into the interior of the Tippera. and Chatgaon (or ' Chittagong') 

 hills than any other European, even to the present time, remarks, in 

 an account of his tour into the latter territory in 1 844-45, § that — ■ 

 " the Gayal, Bos frontalis, is found amongst the hills, particularly 

 to the south of Sitacra : there are two species, differing in size and 

 [a] little in colour : the large one is of a dark brown, and the male 



* J. A. S. XIV, 265. t Ibid. XIV, 495. 



X The Gaydl of Bishop Heber's Journal, which that much respected prelate 

 saw in Barrackpore park, was of course the GrAViEUS tbontalis. But the figure 

 and description given are monstrous, and were obviously got up from extreme- 

 ly vague recollection : the horns turn down instead of up, the space between 

 them is narrow instead of being very broad, the heavy dewlap is not given, nor 

 the white stockings ; the tail is figured and described as "' bushy," and as extending 

 below the hoclss ; and the outline of the spinal ridge is utterly unlike what it 

 should be. He says — " It is very much larger than the largest Indian cattle [he 

 could not then have seen an ordnance bullock], but hardly, I think, equal to an 

 English bull [!] : its tail is bushy [!], and its horns form almost a mass of white 

 and solid bone to the centre of its forehead [!]" He could only have viewed the 

 animal from a distance, and have mistaken the pale colour ol the forehead for a 

 continuation of the bases of the horns. Neither is it, as he remarks, "a native 

 of Tibet and Nipal," nor even of Butan (vide Turner's Embassy). The second 

 figure in the distance is meant, we can only suppose, to represent a large humped 

 Ox; but here, again, the animal is furnished with a Horse's tail, and is like 

 nothing in nature ! Our utmost respect for the reverend Bishop can scarcely 

 pardon him such outrageous caricatures, both of figure and description. Vide 

 Heber's Journal, I, 31. 



§ J. A, 8. XIV, 386. 



