6518 



Notice of the various 



coloured, being of a rich light bay, and the old bulls are blackish, — 

 both, however, relieved with the white on the legs, buttocks, lips and 

 hair lining the ears, which last are scarcely so large as in the gaour 

 and gayal, but of similar shape. Sir Stamford Raffles mentions, that 

 " a remarkable change takes place in the appearance of this animal 

 after castration, the colour in a few months becoming invariably red 

 it e. 9 light bay, as in the female. The general figure, however, is still 

 much more that of the gayal than of European cattle ; but (as before 

 remarked) the legs are conspicuously longer than in that animal, the 

 body is much less ponderous, the tail longer, and the head also 

 is much less broad at the forehead. The horns again are very 

 different. 



In form of skull the banteng more resembles the gaour, with the 

 characteristics of that species subdued, only that the frontal ridge does 

 not turn up at all, as it slightly tends to do also in the gayal, occa- 

 sioning a perceptible hollovvness of the broad forehead of that species 

 in a fine bull-skull before us. The horns of the banteng are thrown 

 oft* at the same angle from the head as in the gayal, or with less of a 

 slant backward than in the gaour, are continued out almost in a Hue 

 with each other, gradually curving upwards and uncinating inwards, 

 with a less considerable slant backwards at their tips. Such is the 

 usual flexure in the bull, but occasionally the tips incline less inwards : 

 in the cow the horns are small, and tend much backwards. Towards 

 the base they are generally very rugous in old bulls ; and the full- 

 grown horn flattens gradually from about the middle to the base ; the 

 section of the base being oval and flattened on the lower surface. 

 Colour pale glaucous-green with black tips, and commonly more or 

 less black or blackish noticeable elsewhere. 



* 'History of Java/ vol. i. p. 3. Probably the same would be observed in the 

 nil-gai ; and certainly in a black buck of the Indian antelope, in which the colour 

 goes and comes with the "rut." There is a head of an emasculated nil-gai in the 

 Calcutta Museum, which is coloured as in the female, and has small and slender horns, 

 the female being hornless, also a fine stuffed specimen of the castrated antelope, which 

 is likewise coloured as in a female, and has horns similar to those which the doe 

 antelope very rarely puts forth, but we are acquainted with three instances of the fact. 

 Vide ' India Sporting Review,' new series, Nos. IV. p. 94, VI. p. 239, and XI. p. 191 ; 

 and for figure of the horns of a female antelope, vide ' Bengal Sporting Magazine,' 

 new series, vol. ii. p. 478 (1845). They resemble those of a castrated buck, but are 

 more slender, their curvature being au open arch and not a twist. Not improbably 

 these horned doe antelopes are barren : a doe fallow deer with one horn was found to 

 have the ovarium of the same side schirrous, analogous to barren hen pheasants with 

 more or less complete masculine attire, &C. 



