1842.] Asiatic Society. 445 



the Indian Peninsula, the Gaour inhabits all the extensive forest tracts from the 

 Himalaya to Cape Comorin, and there can be little or no doubt that the Guavera of 

 Ceylon, noticed by Knox, refers to the same species. Major Forbes, in his recently 

 published 'Journal of Eleven Years' Residence' in that Island (II. 159), informs us that 

 it has been extirpated in Ceylon for more than half a century. A correspondent of the 

 'Bengal Sporting Magazine,' (for 1835, 217,) writing from the southern Mahratta 

 country, remarks, that " the Bison of this jungle differs materially from those of the 

 Mahabuleshwer hills. The latter is merely a blue Cow of the colour of a Buffalo, but 

 of large size. The regular Bison of Dandelly is a tremendous animal, its highest 

 point being the shoulder." From this it might be inferred, that the North-western 

 animal had not the same elevated spinal ridge ; but I am little inclined to suspect 

 that they are different, the more especially as I find the following passage 

 in the ' Transactions of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India,' VII. 1 12. 

 " The only wild cattle we have," observes the writer, J. Little, Esq. "is the Gowha of 

 the natives (Bos Gaurus). This animal is found in the dense jungles, along the 

 whole range of the Western Ghauts from Assurghur to Cape Comorin. A male was 

 shot at the convalescent station of Mahablesher, near the source of the Kristna, which 

 measured at the shoulder fully seventeen hands high." I have credible information of 

 a Gaour which stood not less than nineteen hands in vertical height. That the Gaour 

 varies much in size, I can assert from personal observation of about forty skulls of this 

 species* : one of an adult male taken to England, by the late Honorary Curator of 

 this Society, Dr. Evans, is quite a pigmy in comparison with the enormous head in 

 the United Service Museum. A head of a female, with the skin on, in that of the 

 Hon. East India Company, was presented by the late Major-General Hardwicke, as 

 the As' I or Asseel Gayal of that naturalist, (who figures it in one of the volumes of 

 the 'Zoological Journal,') and of Dr. McCrae (' Asiatic Researches,' VIII. 495). The 

 latter author speaks of it as the Seloi of the Cucis, or Kookies, and P'hanj of the 

 Mugs and Burmahs; which last name is doubtless identical with the F'hain of 

 Dr. Heifer, applied to another species. 



In the passage 1 have already quoted from Dr. Heifer's list of Tenasserim animals, 

 three species of this group are mentioned, the second of which I conclude to be the 

 Gayal (B. frontalis, Lambert, Lin. Trans. VII. 57 and 302, v. B. Gav^us, Cole- 

 brooke, 'Asiatic Researches,' VIII. 487, v. B. Sylhetanus, Duvaucel, F. Cuv. Mam- 

 mal J, which Baron Cuvier strangely suggests to be a breed between the common 

 Ox and Buffalo (' Regne Animal,' I. 280, and again in his 'Ossemens Fossiles'), but 

 which is a genuine species, of which splendid living examples were, not long ago, in 

 the park at Barrackpore, perfectly tame and gentle. This animal has never been 

 found to the westward of the Boorampooter, and its skull has lately been figured by 

 Mr. Hodgson ( Journ. As. Soc. 1841, 470). I am unaware that any trace of it exists 

 in any Museum. 



Another very fine species of this group is the Banteng of Java and Borneo (Bos 

 Sondaicus, Muller, B. Bentinger, Temminck, and B. leucoprymnus, Quoy and Gay- 



* In London alone, there are specimens in the British Museum, that of the Hon. East India 

 Company, of the Zoological Society, Royal Asiatic Society, Royal College of Surgeons, London 

 University, King's College, the United Service Museum, besides many in private collections, as 

 that of Professor Bell, Mr. Blofeld of Middle Row, Holborn. &C. 



