1842.] Asiatic Society. 447 



visited the capital of that country in 1818. They are short, compact, well-made ani- 

 mals, without a hump, and almost without exception of a light fawn-colour relieved 

 with white. The eyes are large and fringed with long white lashes. The legs are 

 delicate and well-shaped. Among all that I saw I did not observe any that were not 

 in excellent condition, in which respect they formed a striking contrast to the cattle 

 generally met with in India. They are universally used in agriculture, and are per- 

 fectly domesticated. This breed appears to be quite distinct from the Banteng of 

 Java and the more eastern Islands." — (Lin. Trans. XIII. 267.^ 



It is, I suspect, no other than a domesticated race of the " Wild Ox" of Burmah; 

 an evident species, of which abundant notices may be found in various works, but no 

 satisfactory description. A skull of such an animal, but unfortunately deprived of the 

 horns, and which is very distinct in form from that of either of the foregoing species, 

 exists in the London United Service Museum, and is labelled " Bison, from the Keddah 

 Coast." I possess some very carefully prepared drawings of this specimen. Captain 

 Gason, of Her Majesty's 62nd Regiment, who has himself been at the death of a 

 Burmese wild bull, has favored me with the following particulars concerning this 

 species : — " These animals stand about fifteen hands and a half high, are very game- 

 looking, with a heavy body, but fine limbs. Their colour is bright yellowish- 

 buff with a black line from the vertex to the tail, the legs black in front, the tips 

 of the ears, muzzle, and tail-tip also black, and the belly perfectly white. There is 

 little or no difference of colour between the sexes. The horns are cylindrical, rather 

 long, and curve round in front to point towards each other. They are excessively 

 timid, and are generally seen feeding in the valleys, often about a large tank." 

 Captain Gason observed them at a place called Nathongzoo, about 250 miles east- 

 ward of Moulmein. 



This is doubtless the species which is also mentioned in one of Colonel Hamilton 

 Smith's letters to me, as a " Wild Ox, inhabiting to the eastward of the Boorampooter, 

 and very different from the Gaour and Gayal. It is simply described," writes Colonel 

 Smith, " as a fine-limbed and deer-like animal of great size, and of a bright bay colour, 

 exceedingly like a Devonshire Ox, very active, fleet, shy, and watchful ; living in 

 small herds in the wooded valleys, with watchers on the look out, who utter a shrill 

 warning sound on the least alarm, when the whole dash through the jungle with 

 irresistible impetuosity." He elsewhere mentions their having white horns; and in 

 Pennant's ' Hindostan,' I remember a notice of a wild species with white horns occur- 

 ring somewhere further to the Eastward ; this same work containing also the earliest 

 mention of the Banteng of Java. 



In a late number of the ' Bengal Sporting Magazine,' (for 1841, p. 444,) we are in- 

 formed, respecting the Burmese Wild Cow, or 'Sine Bar,' 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" 

 (Gaour) as attaining a great size in the East. 



One more quotation apropos to the foregoing observations, and I shall have done. 

 Mr. Crawfurd informs us, that "The Ox is found wild in the Siamese forests, and 



