Species of Bovine Animals, 



6517 



the skin was indurated over the forehead of the latter, and we have 

 never heard of this occurring in the Burmese animal, but have little 

 doubt that it does so. One remarkable fact strikes us upon examining 

 these horns, which is, that the flattening of them at base does not 

 appear until they are fully half-grown ; which may well account for 

 the reports of Burmese wild cattle with cylindrical horns ! The bison- 

 tine-looking horn, however, from the Shan country, has not the peculiar 

 flexure of the present species, and most assuredly cannot be referred 

 to it.* 



The banteng, as beautifully figured by Dr. S. Mliller (who gives 

 coloured portraits of the bull and cow, and of calves young and half- 

 grown), has much more the aspect of the European Bos Taurus than 

 has either the gaour or gayal ; and its less flattened horns present a 

 further approximation. There is nothing exaggerated about its figure ; 

 the spinal ridge is not more elevated than in B. Taurus and the tail- 

 tuft descends considerably below the hock-joint. There is a good deal 

 of the gayal in its general aspect ; but it has longer limbs, and is less 

 heavy and bubaline in its proportions. Indeed, we have heard it com- 

 pared to a Devonshire ox ; but it has nevertheless all the general 

 features of the present group, and is true to the particular colouring 

 — showing the white stockings, and having also a great white patch on 

 the buttocks (whence the name leucoprymnus bestowed by MM. Quoy 

 and Gaimard). The shoulder is a little high, with some appearance 

 of the dorsal ridge between the scapulae, but this slopes off and gradu- 

 ally disappears behind. The rump is also nearly as much squared as 

 in European cattle. Dewlap moderate, with a different outline from 

 that of the gayal, more as in the B. Taurus. Colour of the calf bright 

 chestnut, with a black tail-tuft, and also a black dorsal line commencing 

 from where the ridge should terminate behind ;t the white stockings 

 having much rufous intermixture at this age. The cows are deeper- 



* Here it may be remarked that the curious small fossil frontlet from Kentucky, 

 with narrow forehead and thick hovn-cores, and which we examined in a dealer's shop 

 in London, we now identify for certain as the Bootherium cavifrons of Dr. Leidy, 

 figured and described in the fifth volume of the ' Smithsonian Contributions to Know- 

 ledge,' Washington, 1853. It is the same as the Ovibos Pallantis, De Blainville, 

 and should therefore now stand as Bootherium Pallantis. A second species existed in 

 the Bos bombifrons of Harlan, also figured by Dr. Leidy, together with Bison latifrons, 

 and another which he terms B. antiquus. Bootherium is evidently a good genus, 

 intermediate between the musk cattle and the bisons. 



f The skin of a young calf from Mergui, in the Calcutta Museum, corresponds 

 with that figured by Dr. S. Miiller. The same dorsal line occurs in some individuals 

 of the humped cattle. 



