298 On the Flat-homed Taurine Cattle of S. JE. Asia. [No. 3, 



zine' for 1841, p. 444, we are informed that " herds of thirty and 

 forty frequent the open forest jungles [of the Tenasserim provinces]. 

 They are noble-looking animáis, with short curved horns, that admit 

 of a beautiful polish. The cows are red and white, and the bulls of 

 a blnish colonr. They are very timid, and not dangerous to approach. 

 Their flesh is excellent. They are the only cows indigenons to the 

 provinces :" — yet the preceding paragraph mentions " the Bison" or 

 Gaour as " attaining a great size in the East." 



Here the difference of colonring of the sexes observable in the 

 Banteng (analogous to what is seen in the Ml-gai and Indian 

 Antelope, and to a less extent in the Gayál,) is notieed ; and Sir 

 T. Stamford Raines mentions, that (as also in the Nil-gai,) " a 

 remarkable change takes place in the appearance of this animal 

 after castration, the colour in a few months becoming invariably 

 red ;"* i. e. reverting to the hue of the cow and immature bull. 

 The horns cannot jnstly be termed short in an oíd bull ; but it 

 is worthy of remark that, when full grown, they are flattened only 

 towards the base, considerably less so than in the G-aonr and Gayál, 

 wherefore, when but half-grown, only the cylindrical portion of them 

 appears, which has given rise to the reports of wild cattle with cylin- 

 drical horns inhabiting the Indo-Chinese territories. As shewn by 

 Prof. S. Müller's figures, the Banteng — though still very Gayál-like in 

 general aspect — approximates more nearly in contour to the cylin- 

 drical-horned humpless cattle of Europe and N. Asia, than is the 

 case with its immediate congeners, the Gaour and Gayál ; and the 

 increased amount of cylindricity of its horns adds to the resemblance. 

 With much of the general aspect of the Gayál, it has longer limbs, 

 and is less heavy and Bubaline in its proportions. There is nothing 

 exaggerated about its figure ; the spinal ridge is not more elevated 

 than in B. taurus, and the tail-tuffc descends considerably below the 

 hock-joint. Indeed, this animal has been compared to a Devonshire 

 Ox ; but it has nevertheless all the general features of the present 

 group, and is true to the particular colouring, shewing the white 

 stockings (like the Gaour and the Gayál, and also not a few Indian 

 Buífaloes). The shoulder is a little high, with some appearance of 

 the dorsal ridge behind the scapulse, but this slopes off and gra- 

 * History of Java, I, 111. 



