298 On the Mat-horned Taurine Cattle of S. E. Asia. [No. 3, 



zine' for 1841, p. 444, we are informed that " herds of thirty and 

 forty frequent the open forest jungles [of the Tenasserim provinces]. 

 They are noble-looking animals, with short curved horns, that admit 

 of a beautiful polish. The cows are red and white, and the bulls of 

 a bluish colour. They are very timid, and not dangerous to approach. 

 Their flesh is excellent. They are the only cows indigenous to the 

 provinces :" — yet the preceding paragraph mentions " the Bison" or 

 Gaour as " attaining a great size in the East." 



Here the difference of colouring of the sexes observable in the 

 Banteng (analogous to what is seen in the Nil-gai and Indian 

 Antelope, and to a less extent in the Gayal,) is noticed ; and Sir 

 T. Stamford Baffles mentions, that (as also in the Nil-gai,) " a 

 remarkable change takes place in the appearance of this animal 

 after castration, the colour in a few months becoming invariably 

 red ;"* i. e. reverting to the hue of the cow and immature bull. 

 The horns cannot justly be termed short in an old bull ; but it 

 is worthy of remark that, when full grown, they are flattened only 

 towards the base, considerably less so than in the Gaour and Gayal, 

 wherefore, when but half-grown, only the cylindrical portion of them 

 appears, which has given rise to the reports of wild cattle with cylin- 

 drical horns inhabiting the Indo-Chinese territories. As shewn by 

 Prof. S. Miiller's figures, the Banteng — though still very Gayal-like in 

 general aspect — approximates more nearly in contour to the cylin- 

 drical-horned humpless cattle of Europe and N. Asia, than is the 

 case with its immediate congeners, the Gaour and Gayal ; and the 

 increased amount of cylindricity of its horns adds to the resemblance. 

 With much of the general aspect of the Gayal, it has longer limbs, 

 and is less heavy and Bubaline in its proportions. There is nothing 

 exaggerated about its figure ; the spinal ridge is not more elevated 

 than in B. taubus, and the tail-tuft descends considerably below the 

 hock-joint. Indeed, this animal has been compared to a Devonshire 

 Ox ; but it has nevertheless all the general features of the present 

 group, and is true to the particular colouring, shewing the white 

 stoclcings (like the Gaour and the Gayal, and also not a few Indian 

 Buffaloes). The shoulder is a little high, with some appearance of 

 the dorsal ridge behind the scapulae, but this slopes off and gra- 

 * History of Java, I 3 111. 



