1860.] On the Mat-homed Tanrine Cattle of S. E. Asia. 295 



perfectly gentle and quiet ; and they habitually pass the night and 

 great part of the day beneath the raised habitations of their owners : 

 and M. Barbe further mentions that he was greatly astonished at the 

 facility with which these enormous cattle ascended and descended 

 heights so steep and precipitous, that, had he not witnessed the feat, 

 he would scarcely have been inclined to credit it." The last observa- 

 tion points rather to the Gayál than to the G-aour ! 



As a rule, the proper habitat of the Gaour is an undulating 

 grassy table-land intermixed with forest ; the heavy and Buífalo- 

 shaped Gayál being habitually much more of a climber, and also more 

 exclusively aífecting the dense craggy forest, where it browses 

 in preference to grazing ; the Graour being much more of a grazer. 

 Having possessed both species alive, I can testify to this differ- 

 ence in their feeding. The Gaour appears to be dhTused through- 

 out the Indo-Chinese countries, and all down the Malayan peninsula 

 to the extreme south ; but has not been observed on any of the great 

 islands of the archipelago. I have lately seen the skull with horns of 

 an oíd bull from the mainlandnear Singapore ; and in 1858 I purchased 

 a live Gaour-calf that was brought from Singapore to Calcutta, toge- 

 ther with a Malayan Tapir. This calf was in high health when I 

 shipped him for England, and as tame and tractable as any domestic 

 animal, yet full of life and frolic ; but he was suddenly taken ill 

 when nearing the Cape, and died on the following or next day. He 

 was very impatient of the sun, even at the height of the cold weather 

 (so called) in Calcutta ; which rendered it difiicult to secure a photo- 

 graph of the animal, but a good one was taken, and copied in the 

 * Illustrated London News ;' only the artist must needs improve 

 upon nature by lengthening the tail beyond the hocks, which detracts 

 from the vraisemblance of the wood-cut. The Gaour is the only 

 species of the group which inhabits m-Bráhmaputran India, in all 

 suitable districts ; extending formerly to Ceylon, where we recognise 

 it as the Guavera of Knox ; and in Johnson' s ' Indian Field Sports,' it 

 is familiarly referred to as " the Gour (a kind of wild bullock)" 

 inhabiting, in about 1796, the hill-country bording on the Dáoiudá, 

 through which the Grand Trunk Hoad now runs from E-ánigánj to 

 Shergátti, — a district from which it has been long since extirpated, 

 or has retired some hundreds of miles further west. It is still 



