192 Mr. W. T. Blanford's Zoological Notes. [No. 3, 



deer (axis maculatus Gray), and the wild pig. But they attack higher 

 game. I have heard a perfectly authenticated account of their destroy- 

 ing a young gaur (Bos gaurus), and I myself found the fresh carcase 

 of a full grown (tame) buffalo which had been killed by them. This 

 was in the jungles east of Baroda. Now a buffalo is not an easy 

 beast to kill ; very few tigers will attack an adult. It struck me 

 that the teeth of a wild dog would scarcely suffice to tear the enormously 

 thick skin of the throat of their prey : and on examining the carcase 

 I found scarcely the mark of a tooth on the neck and throat, although 

 there were many about the muzzle. The animal had evidently been 

 killed by tearing out its intestines, a portion of the pack meantime 

 holding the animal by hanging on, in bull clog style, to his muzzle 

 and forequarters. I suspect that they kill all large animals in the 

 same way ; a young sambur, which I saw on the Nilgiris, had 

 apparently been killed in this manner. I have heard from natives, 

 too, that this is their mode of attacking tigers. That they do attack 

 and kill tigers is so universally stated in India, in every place where 

 the wild dog is found, from the Himalayas to the extreme south, that 



1 do not think its truth can be doubted, startling as the assertion 

 appears. Yet, singularly enough, they never attack men : at least I 

 never heard of their doing so. The wolf, which, although larger, is 

 proportionately their inferior in strength and speed, and which rarely, 

 and in India, I think, never, collects into packs as large as those of 

 Cuon rutilans, not unfrequently attacks men, though I believe he 

 rarely attacks an animal of the size of a full grown sambur. 



Ruminantia. 

 4. The gaur and gayal. Bos gaurus, Smith, and Bos pontalis y 

 Lambert. I had the unusual advantage last year, and at an interval of 



2 months, of seeing five adult examples of both these magnificent bovine 

 species alive. The gaur were wild in the jungles of Nimar, the gayals 

 were the magnificent tame specimens procured by Dr. J. Anderson for 

 the Zoological Society, and living for some time in the Botanical 

 gardens at Calcutta. There could be little question of the purity of 

 breed of the latter ; although far more tame and gentle than most 

 domestic cattle, their symmetry and the regularity of their colouring 

 were those of wild animals. 



There is, at the first sight, a remarkable resemblance between these 

 two races. The massive proportions, thick horns, short legs, immense 



