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enough to be easily trained to labour, its great swiftness, with considerable strength, 
might be applied, one would think, to valuable purposes. 
““Good paintings of animals give much clearer ideas than descriptions. Whoever 
looks at the picture, which was done under my eye by Mr. Stubbs, that excellent painter 
of animals, can never be at a loss to know the Nyl-ghau, wherever he may happen to 
meet with it. However, I shall attempt a description of the animal; and then give as 
much of its history as I have been hitherto able to learn. The account will be imperfect: 
yet it will give naturalists some pleasure in the meantime to know even a little of a 
large and elegant animal, which has not hitherto been described or painted.” 
After a capital description of both sexes of this animal from the living 
specimens, Hunter proceeds as follows :— 
“Of late years several of this species, both male and female, have been brought to 
England. The first were sent from Bombay by Gov. Cromelen, as a present to Lord 
Clive: they arrived in August 1767. They were male and female, and continued to 
breed every year. Afterwards two were brought over, and presented to the Queen by 
Mr. Sullivan. From Her Majesty’s desire to encourage every useful or curious enquiry 
in natural knowledge, I was permitted to keep these two for some time, which enabled 
me to describe them, and to get a correct picture made, and, with my brother’s assistance, 
to dissect the dead animal, and preserve the skin and skeleton. Lord Clive has been so 
kind to give me every help that he could furnish me with in making out their history ; 
so has General Carnac, and some other gentlemen. 
“ At all the places in India, where we have settlements, they are rarities, brought from 
the distant interior parts of the country, as presents to Nabobs and great men. Lord 
Clive, General Carnac, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Watts, and many other gentlemen, who have seen 
much of India, tell me they never saw them wild. So far as I have yet found, Bernier 
is the only author who has ever mentioned them. 
“Jn the fourth vol. of his Mémoires, he gives an account of a journey which he 
undertook, ann. 1664, from Delhi, to the province of Cachemire, with the Mogul 
Aurengzeb, who went to that terrestrial paradise, as it is esteemed by the Indians, to 
avoid the heat of the summer. In giving an account of the hunting, which was the 
Emperor’s amusement in this journey, he describes, among others, that of le Nyl-ghau, 
but without saying more of the animal than that the Emperor sometimes kills them in 
such numbers as to distribute quarters of them to all his Omrachs; which shows that 
they were there wild, and in plenty, and esteemed good or delicious food. 
“‘ This agrees with the rarity of these animals at Bengal, Madras, and Bombay; for 
Cachemire is the most northern province of the Empire, and it was on the march from 
Delhi to that place that Bernier saw the Emperor hunt them.” 
Although, as we have already seen, living specimens of the Nilgai were 
long ago brought to Europe, little addition was made to our knowledge of 
this animal in its native state until the days of Elliot, Jerdon, and Hodgson. 
