Species of Bovine Animals, 



6509 



regularly fed every night with salt, of which he is very fond ; and 

 from the occasional continuance of this practice, as he grows up, the 

 attachment of the gayal to his native village becomes so strong, 

 that when the Kukis migrate from it they are obliged to set fire to 

 their huts, which they are about to leave, lest their gayals should re- 

 turn thither from their new place of resideuce before they become 

 equally attached to it as to the former, through the same means. 



" The wild gayal sometimes steals out from the forest in the night, 

 and feeds in the rice-fields bordering on the hills. The Kukis give 

 no grain to their cattle. With us ihe tame gayals feed on calai 

 (Phaseolus max) ;* but, as our hills abound with shrubs, it has not 

 been remarked what particular kind of grass they prefer.f 



" The Hindus, in this province, will not kill the gobay, which they 

 hold in equal veneration with the cow. But the ' As'l gayal,' or 

 ' seloi,' [i. e. the gaour], they hunt and kill, as they do the wild 

 buffalo. The animal here alluded to has never been domesticated ; 

 and is, in appearance and disposition, very different from the common 

 gayal, which has just been described. The natives call him the 

 'As'l gayal,' in contra-distinction to the 'gobay.' The Kukis distin- 

 guish him by the name of ' seloi,' and the Mughs and Burmans by that 

 of 1 phanj ;' and they consider him (next to the tiger) the most dan- 

 gerous and the fiercest animal of their forests." No ! this Burmese 

 phanj is the f'hain apud Heifer, more correctly 6 tsain,' or 4 tsoing,' 

 distinct both from the gaour and gayal, and a particularly timid and 

 inoffensive beast, identical (as we have before mentioned) with the 

 Javanese banteng. 



" The gayal," Mr. Elliot writes from Tippera, " is little known to 

 the natives here ; it is principally considered as an inhabitant of the 

 Chatgaon (Chittagong) Hills. In conversation with people belonging 

 to the Raja of Tippera, on the subject of this beast, I have understood 

 that it is known in the recesses of the more eastern part of the Tippera 

 Hills, but has never been canght [!J In the past year some of these 

 animals [gaours ?] were seen in a herd of elephants, and continued 

 sometime with the herd ; but they were alarmed at the noise used in 

 driving the elephants, and escaped being secured in the fenced en- 

 closure. The ' khedda' of that season was nearly five hours' journey 

 from the skirts of the hills. 



" This animal is found wild, but is readily domesticated ; though, 



* Phaseolus mungo, L. ; P. max of Roxburgh. 



f They graze readily enough on the ordinary grasses of Lower Bengal, when they 

 have not the opportunity of browsing. 



