Species of Bovine Animals. 



6415 



that follow the horns are much flattened ; and the typical flexure of 

 the horns is first outward, then forward at about a right angle with 

 the line of visage, and finally upward and in some inward at the tip. 

 In all other Bovina3, without exception, the horns do not typically 

 curve forward beyond the plane of the face (a line drawn from the fore- 

 head or crest of vertex to the nose), but just attain to that plane, and 

 mostly incline backward at the tips. Abnormally curved horns are 

 very common in the humped cattle, but if they turn forward beyond 

 the plane of the visage, the flexure passes downward and inward ; as 

 shown among other instances, by the hugely thick horns of the Bor- 

 nouese cattle of Denham. The typical curvature of horn of the humped 

 cattle is similar in direction to that of a yak's horn (only laterally 

 more oblique in the set); or as shown by the immense head-gear of 

 the African Galla cattle.* That of the humpless taurines now treated 

 of may be familiarly exemplified by the horns of our British Devon 

 cattle, the so-called wild cattle of Chillingham Park, and equally so 

 by those of the fossil Bos primogenius, Bos namadicus, and others.f 

 Various abnormal forms of horn occur in the domestic breeds of Euro- 

 pean cattle, but these do not resemble the abnormal forms of horn of 

 the humped cattle ; and, to our apprehension, the mere typical or nor- 

 mal flexure of the horn of the " zebu " or humped cattle (as will be 

 obvious on a little study of the subject) resembling that of the yak's 

 horns as before remarked, and more or less all the rest of the tribe, as 

 opposed to the group of humpless taurines with cylindrical horns, is 

 sufficient evidence of the specifical distinctness of the humped races. 

 We might have added the configuration and physiognomy of the skull 

 to the other distinctions, the specifical difference being here also well 

 marked. 



* In the small Bengali race of cattle there is a decided exceptional tendency, at 

 variauce with the other races of humped catile. The horns mostly incline forward at 

 a considerable angle with the plane of visage, as remarked by Buchanan Hamilton, 

 when noticing the contrary in the different races observed by him in Southern India ; 

 but they have an abnormal look, and very commonly curve downward and even inward 

 at the tips, as mentioned above. Indeed, not unfrequently the prolongation of the 

 growth would cause the tips of the horns to enter the orbits and so destroy the eyes, if 

 those tips were not sawn off in time to prevent such injury ! This, therefore, must 

 necessarily be an abnormal curvature ! 



f The Devon and Spanish cattle quite come up to our notion of a typical form of 

 the conventional or artificial species yclept Bos taurus. Why we call it so will appear 

 in the sequel. The Herefords are the same thing magnified and coarser. The 

 Alderneys smaller and still neater. We confess, too, a considerable admiration of the 

 little shaggy Highland cattle, so artistically pourtrayed by the pencil of Rosa 

 Bonheur. 



