6548 



Notice of the various 



We respectfully submit that the gaour is one and the same species, 

 without appreciable difference, alike in northern and southern India, 

 formerly in Ceylon, and still numerous in the Burmese countries and 

 Malayan peninsula ; also that nearly throughout this great range of 

 territory there is only one species of Rusa or Sambur deer, however 

 individuals may vary.* The gaour is the only existing indigenous 

 wild taurine in cis-Brahmaputran India; for it is very doubtful if the 

 wild humped cattle be indigenous to this country. The humped may 

 yet prove to be the proper African type of taurines. 



Of his genus Gavceus, as apart from Bibos, Mr. Hodgson remarks — 

 " The Gavi or Gabi — habitat trans- Brahmaputran, the forests under 

 the ranges extending from Asam to the sea. The Senbar vel P'hain 

 may probably be a second species ; and B. sondaicus, or the banteng, 

 a third and the insular species ; but these want testing. The first is 

 more than half reduced from the wild state, like the yak of Tibet. The 

 others are entirely wild." 



Not so : we credit Mr. Barbe's statement, founded on personal ob- 

 servation, that the gaour, in addition to the gayal, is domesticated in 

 the interior of the Tippera Hills ; and we have long known that the 

 banteng was partially domesticated in the Archipelago. The Rev. 

 J. Mason also remarks of this animal (as we believe, in the Tenasserim 

 provinces), that " occasionally a young wild ox is domesticated, and 

 brought under the yoke." We identify, with scarcely a trace of hesi- 

 tation, upon the strength of the evidence now before us, the T'sain 

 or T'soing of Burma with the banteng of the Archipelago ; thus re- 

 ducing the number of known flat-horned taurines to three, all of 

 which (we have much reason to conclude) are found together, or within 

 the same district, in the Indo-Chinese region, if not also in the 

 Malayan peninsula. What the Sumatran domestic cattle, observed 



* The Sambur of the Malayan peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo, or Rusa equina, 

 would appear to be a smaller and lighter-built species, wilh longer and finer limbs, 

 than that of all India, R. Aiistotelis ; the horns also being proportionally thicker, but 

 less elongated. That of Java, R. hippelaphus apud Gray, is very distinct, and has 

 invariably the inner prong of the terminal fork of each horn much longer than the 

 outer prong-, being the reverse of what occurs in the spotted Axis. The Javanese Rusa 

 is also smaller than the Malayan ; but the difference of size, as represented by Dr. S. 

 Muller's figures of skulls (drawn on the same scale), is conspicuously much less than 

 the d fference of size of fine adult skulls from India and Java now under examination. 

 Mow far northward the R. equina extends, we have been unable to ascertain ; but R. 

 Aristotelis is certainly that inhabiting Arakau. The Javanese species has long beeu 

 naturalised in the Mauritius. 



