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



large bovines, are undoubtedly dangerous in the rutting season. In 

 general, the gaur is a timid and rather stupid animal, not very sharp 

 of sight, though, like all ruminants and, indeed, all wild mammals, 

 gifted with strong powers of scent. 



I have never seen a herd of more than 16, and ten to twelve is a 

 more common number, the herd comprising one or two adult bulls 

 only, the remainder being cows and calves. The bulls remain apart ; 

 either solitary, or in parties of two or three. But I have heard both 

 from Europeans and natives of much larger gatherings having been 

 seen. These are doubtless formed by the union of many herds, and 

 this habit of collecting, at particular seasons, in very large numbers, 

 appears common to most ruminants which habitually live in herds. 

 Thus I have seen, in April, at least 150 spotted deer (Axis maculatus) 

 together, and I have heard of far larger numbers collecting in the hot 

 season, and I have recently heard of similar assemblages of the 

 barasingha (Rucervus Duvaucellii). 



The cows of the gaur, as I have already mentioned, vary consider- 

 ably in colour, being usually some shade of brown, approaching dun. 

 Some, in Nimar and the Satpoora hills at all events, are of a very red 

 tinge, in some cases approaching closely to the deep red so common 

 in European cattle, — the colour also, I believe, of the cow Banting, 

 Bos sondaicus. I am inclined to think that the colour is redder in. 

 the cold season than in the hot weather. The usual tinge in the hot 

 season at least is a much duller brown, nearly the colour of the Nilgiri 

 buffaloes. From what I have heard, the tint of these Nimar animals 

 may be lighter than that of the cows in the Western Grhats and 

 southern India, a circumstance probably connected with the much 

 greater exposure to the sun which they must undergo in the thin 

 trap jungles, and also partly, perhaps, accounted for by that tendency 

 which appears to exist in most wild animals to approximate, in their 

 colour, the general hue of their habitat. This is, of course, much 

 lighter in a tract mainly covered by grass, which is dried and of the 

 colour of straw for 7 months of the year, than in the depth of the 

 evergreen forests of Malabar and the Western Grhats. 



The size of the gaur, great as it is, is often, I suspect, exaggerated 

 by unfair measurement. Instead of measuring the true height, as is 

 done with horses, the length from the forefoot to the end of the spinal 



