1837.] or Gauri Gau of the Indian forests. 747 



We have no instance of tins latter peculiarity in any proper Bovine 

 animal : and, as it is developed even in the womb in Bibos, charac- 

 terising before birth the females as well as the males of the race, we 

 need look no further for an essential difference of structure between 

 Bos and Bibos. 



One word as to the specific name. Subhemachalus is bad, because 

 I have now every reason to believe that this animal is found in various 

 and remote parts of India. Gaurus and Gavceus are bad, because a 

 host of errors cling to the extant descriptions of both, and because 

 we can neither distinguish between the two, nor affirm safely that our 

 animal is identical with either. Names taken from peculiar structure 

 are perhaps the best. Wherefore I would propose the specific name 

 of Cavifrons for our animal, as the type of this new form, of which 

 one peculiarity is the concavity of the forehead, caused by that ter- 

 minal ascending sweep of the frontals which carries them above the 

 highest edge of the bases of the horns, notwithstanding the extraor- 

 dinary dimensions of the latter. The horns spread latitudinally, 

 both before and behind the utmost breadth of the frontal crest, but not 

 above it. In well grown males the extreme superior limit of the 

 bases of the horns is from one to two inches below the crown of the 

 frontal crest : I am not aware that this inferior position of the horns, 

 nor their strong tendency towards the Bubaline shape (depressed and 

 angular) is to be traced in any true Bovine animal. 



The popular name of Gauri's bull (from Gauri the wife of Siva) 

 might suggest the sufficiently euphonious and appropriate appellation 

 of Gaurianus, but it is objectionable, because I have reason to believe 

 that its popular proto-type is applied indiscriminately to all the wild 

 bulls of India, some of which are propably Bisons (as Gaurus) and 

 others, probably congeners of our Bibos. 



RUMINANTES, BoVIDjE. 



Genus Bos ; Subgenus (?) Bibos, nob. 



Subgeneric characters. 



Head and forequarters exceedingly large. Cranium bovine in its 

 general character, but much more massive and depressed : its breadth 

 between the orbits equal to the height, and half of the length : fron- 

 tals extremely large in all their proportions, deeply concave and sur- 

 mounted by a huge semicylindric crest rising above the bases of the 

 horns. Posteal plane of the skull vertical, equal to the frontal plane, 

 and divided centrally by the lambdoid crest. Orbits more salient, 

 and rami of the lower jaw straighter, with less elevated condyles, than 

 in the Bos : thirteen pairs of ribs. Spinous processes of the dorsal ver- 

 5 b 2 



