Species of Bovine Animals. 



6423 



kindly to the climate than the improved and pampered breeds sent out 

 from Britain. We happen to be among the dissentients who do not 

 regard the beef of the humped ox — even well- fed Gyna beef — as equal 

 to our finely interstratified (with fat and lean) Christmas beef at home ; 

 and therefore think that the cultivation of European cattle is desirable, 

 especially in the Nilgiris and other elevated localities when the land- 

 leeches do not interfere to prevent it. 



Our notice of the " feral " humped cattle has elicited some informa- 

 tion from a friend, who tells us that there are many in the now famous 

 Jugdespore jungles, which he has often shot over. The late Kooer 

 Singh granted permission to our informant to shoot what he pleased, 

 so long as he spared the wild cattle, which, according to tradition, had 

 inhabited the district for at least 400 years. Our friend, of course, 

 respected the injunction, but was curious about them, and had oppor- 

 tunities of watching them somewhat closely. All he saw were rather 

 of small size, of an earthy-brown colour, with shortish horns, and he 

 thinks without the Nilgai markings on the feet. We have very long 

 been of opinion that such was the primeval hue of the humped races ; 

 but the mottling of the feet — a white ring above the hoofs, set off above 

 and below with black — is so very prevalent among our domestic 

 humped cattle that we cannot help thinking it an aboriginal marking. 

 Another friend informs us that there are many wild cattle of the sort 

 upon the churr, or alluvial island, known as the " Siddee churr," lying 

 S. E. of Noacally in the Eastern Sundarbans. He adds that their 

 colours vary, as in ordinary domestic cattle ; and he especially ap- 

 proves of the quality of their beef. On this churr there is no high 

 tree-jungle, and scarcely brush- wood enough to afford cover for tigers, 

 which do not occur on the island. 



To return now to our general subject. The question has been much 

 disputed whether the urus of the old Romans was identical with their 

 bison ; and the affirmative has been very ably argued, as by Dr. Weis- 

 senborn, in the 1 Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' vol. iv. 

 p. 239 et seq. ; but the two are so repeatedly contrasted that we could 

 never doubt that the names referred to different animals, as in the 

 following passage of Seneca: — 



" Tibi dant varire pectora tigres, 

 Tibi villosi terga bisontes 



Latisque feri cornibus uri." — Hippol., Act I. v. 63. 



The most striking feature of each animal, from what we know of the 

 still-living bison and of the sub-fossil skulls of the huge taurine found 



