710 On Various Genera of the Ruminants. I^vly^ 



Buffaloe are the margins rather than the interior of primeval forests. 

 They never ascend the mountains, and adhere, like Rhinoceroses, to the 

 most swampy sites of the districts they frequent. There is no animal 

 upon which ages of domestication have made so small an impression as 

 upon the Buffaloe, the tame species heing still most clearly referrible to 

 the wild ones at present frequenting all the great swampy jungles of 

 India. But in those wildernesses as in the cow-houses, a marked dis- 

 tinction may be observed between the long-horned and curve-horned 

 Buffaloes, or the Macrocerus and Speirocerus of my Catalogue — which 

 whether they be separate species or merely varieties, I shall not venture 

 to decide, but I incline to regard them as species. The length of the 

 horns of Macrocerus is sometimes truly enormous, or 6^- feet each. 



There is such a pair in the British Museum, and another pair I saw 

 in Tirhut. The Arna ruts in autumn and the females produce one or 

 two young in summer after a gestation of 10 months. The herds are 

 usually numerous and sometimes exceedingly so, though at the season 

 of love the most lusty males lead off and appropriate several females 

 with which they form small herds for the time. I have no memoran- 

 dum of the intestines of the Arna. This noble species is, in the Saul 

 forest and Tarai, a truly stupendous animal, as tall as the Gaur and 

 longer considerably, and of such power and vigour as by his charge 

 frequently to prostrate a well-sized elephant ! The wild animals are 

 fully a third larger than the largest tame breed, and measure from 

 snout to vent 10^ feet, and six to six and half feet high at the shoul- 

 der. The wild Buffaloe is remarkable for the uniform shortness of its 

 tail, which extends not lower than the hock ; for the tufts which cover 

 his forehead and knees ; and, lastly, for the great size of his horns and 

 the uniform high condition of the animal, so unlike the leanness and 

 angularity of the domestic buffaloe' s figure, even at its best. 



I have now disposed of all the Bovines proper of India, and might 

 next proceed to the Bovine Antelopes or Busdorcinae which form an- 

 other sub-family of the Bovidae. But those animals, with one excep- 

 tion, and that a doubtful one — viz. Portax picta or the Nilgau— -are 

 wholly foreign to India, and the Nilgau itself rarely found on the left 

 bank of the Ganges, how common soever across that river all the way 

 to the Deccan and Carnatic. Wherefore, having no personal knowledge 

 of the group, I leave it untouched. It will be seen above that my 



