TWO PHILIPPINE BUFFALOES. 



W. T. IIORNADAY. 



Considering the great area of the Philip- 

 pine Archipelago, and the rugged wildness 

 of the interior regions of all the larger 

 islands, their poverty in mammalian life is 

 remarkable. 



Borneo and Java are both rich in quad- 

 rupeds, but the Philippines possess only 21 

 .species of land mammals. They contain 

 only one very ordinary monkey species 

 (Borneo has 14), no bears, wolves, foxes nor 

 large cat animals; only one small wild cat 

 .and two civet cats. 



Perhaps the most interesting wild animal 

 in the whole group is the pigmy buffalo 

 (Probubalus mindorensis) discovered on 

 the island of Mindoro, in 1888, by Professor 

 J. B. Steere, of Ann Arbor, Mich., and first 

 described and named by him. Its native 

 name is Tamarou, and it is found only on 

 Mindoro. Its discoverer collected 5 speci- 

 mens, the mounted skins and skeletons of 

 which, all save one, are now in American 

 museums. The accompanying illustration is 

 from one of Professor Steere's mounted 

 specimens. The hair of this animal is black, 

 but so thin that the light bluish-gray skin 

 shows through it. Although this animal is 

 3. fully adult male, its shoulder height is only 

 42 inches. 



This species is the nearest relative of the 

 well-known anoa of Celebes, and the 2 are 

 the smallest bovine animals in existence. I 

 "have never seen the Philippine species alive, 

 but am personally acquainted with 3 beau- 

 tiful anoas, now living in the Zoological 

 Gardens at Frankfort, Germany; and I can 

 testify that for elegance of form and fineness 

 of finish, generally, they are very beautiful 

 ■and attractive. They are of a uniform bluish 

 slate color, and their coats are soft as velvet. 



Scattered generally throughout Hindos- 

 tan, Ceylon and the Far East is found the 

 "big, raw-boned prototype of the pigmy buf- 

 faloes — the domesticated water buffalo. His 

 wild congener of India has horns that some- 

 times spread 8 feet, and when wounded 

 and nagged by a hunter, he is " bad medi- 

 cine." But the domestic animal is tameness 

 itself. The length and set of his horns may 

 vary in different localities, but his homeli- 

 ness is as constant as the sun. His horns 



droop back and down, quite as if designed 

 to open paths through thick jungle. His 

 shiny blue — or black — hide bears exactly 20 

 hairs to the hand-breadth, and often his hip 

 bones stick up high enough that his driver 

 can hang his turban on them. If feed is 

 abundant, he cheerfully grows round and 

 plump, and looks very much as if " stuffed 

 and mounted " by a taxidermist of the old 

 school. When work is hard, and food and 

 water scarce, he assumes a form of the sort 

 now furnished by the most ambitious taxi- 



PHOTO BY DR. J. B. STEERE. 



PHILIPPINE PIGMY BUFFALO. 



dermists of the " new school " — a living 

 skeleton. 



But the domestic buffalo has his uses. 

 Water and mud have no terrors for him, and 

 in the rice fields, from Manila to Malabar, 

 you will find him. at almost any season, 

 cheerfully floundering along through 2 feet 

 of mud and water, dragging a wooden thing 

 called a plow, with a naked native attach- 

 ment, "plowing" for rice. In reality, the 

 plowing is done by the big, splay feet of 

 the buffalo, not by the plowshare. 



In the East Indies, the water buffalo is 

 used as a riding animal, and it is in this 

 branch of the service that the 2 Manila buf- 

 faloes shown in the illustration are serving 

 a group of Philippinos. Both the buffaloes 

 and natives look plump and well fed — exact- 

 ly the reverse of both classes as I first saw 

 them in the Bombay presidency. 



Mary had a little foot, 

 Which got caught in the door. 

 The door it hurt poor Mary's foot. 

 And little Marv — swore! 



Alfred Klugh. 



87 



