90 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



The young bulls are a deeper tint of the same colour, 

 becoming, however, much darker as they advance in age, 

 the mature biiU being almost black on the back and sides, 

 and showing a rich chestnut shade only on the lower parts 

 of the body and inside of the thighs. The colour of both 

 bulls and cows varies a good deal in different localities. 

 The lightest coloured are those of the open grass jungles 

 in the west, the darkest those of the deep bamboo forests 

 of Puchmurree and the east. The white stockings, which 

 are so characteristic a marking of this species, also change 

 with advancing age, assuming a much dingier colour in 

 the old bulls. A singular change also occurs in the growth 

 of the horns, which will be well illustrated by the accom- 

 panying plate of a photographed series belonging to bulls 

 of different ages shot in the same locality (Nimar). No. 1 

 belonged to a young chestnut-coloured bull of about five 

 years old. Its shape, it will be seen, approximates to 

 that of the cows (No. 5), being, like them, slender and 

 much recurved at the points. No. 2 pertained to a very 

 dark, but not black, bull, evidently a year or two older 

 than the first, but not quite mature. The horns have 

 considerably increased in girth at the base, and have 

 assumed a more outward sweep, with less incurvature at 

 the points. No. 3 are still thicker and more horizontal, 

 with some signs of wear at the tips, and were taken from 

 a full-grown, jet-black bull, the lord of a herd. No. 4 

 adorned a very old and solitary bull, and are, it will be 

 seen, extremely rugged and massive, with scarcely any 

 curve, and are considerably worn and blunted at the 

 points. They measure thirty-seven and a half inches 

 across the sweep, and seventeen round the thickest part. 

 No. 3 are the longest round the curve of the horn, each 

 measuring twenty-five and a half inches, the extreme girth 

 being only fifteen and a half inches. The largest of these 

 bulls measured exactly seventeen and a quarter hands 

 (five feet nine inches) at the shoulder, measuring fairly 

 the right line between two pegs held in the line of the fore- 

 leg. I once measured a bull in the Puchmurree hills which 

 was two inches taller than this, and I am convinced that 

 this is about the extreme height attained by them in this 



