Species of Bovine Animals. 



6555 



towards the sources of the Nerbudda ; and Mr. Harkness, in his work 

 on the aborigines of the Nilgiris, remarks that the tame buffaloes there 

 are " fine large animals, monsters in comparison to those of the low 

 country," — and again, te the buffalo of the Nilgiris is of a much better 

 description than that of the low country, and the milk they yield is 

 of a flavour and richness superior to any of the kind I have met with. 

 The climate seems better adapted to them than that of the plains. 

 They are not tormented by the innumerable flies and other insects 

 that in the latter force them to plunge into water, or, as the case may 

 be, into some muddy pool, remaining there for the greater part of the 

 day with just their foreheads and nostrils above the surface ; but here 

 they quietly range over the downs, in herds often from 100 or 150 to 

 200, unmolested and unannoyed, feeding on a rich and luxuriant her- 

 bage, more adapted to their taste than the finer kinds of grass." Few 

 sights surprise a novice more in India than to see a herd of these huge 

 brutes emerge from a small muddy tank, where the presence of so many 

 great animals was previously unsuspected. 



In western Malasia generally, and especially in Sumatra, as about 

 Bencoolen, albino buffaloes are very prevalent, having the same dis- 

 agreeable leprous look as the white elephant. Those of the Philippines 

 and China are uniformly small, but robust, and this seems to be the 

 race figured by Dr. Salomon Miiller.* They are finer, however, 



* Tame buffaloes seem to be co-extensive in range with the Malayan race of man- 

 kind in the Archipelago ; but we do not hear of that race having transported them to 

 Madagascar. There is much rice cultivation, however, in that island, where the 

 ground would appear to be tilled by a superior race of the humped cattle. With regard 

 to the humpless wild race of cattle in Madagascar, hitherto undescribed, it seems that 

 these animals are very numerous in the province of Mena-be, which occupies much of 

 the^western portion of the island. In Mr. J. A. Lloyd's ' Memoir on Madagascar,' 

 published in the 20th volume of the ' Royal Geographical Society's Journal,' we read 

 (p. 63) that " the northern part of Mena-be contains great numbers of wild cattle. 

 Radama and his officers, in one of their warlike expeditions amongst the Sakalami, 

 passing through this country, killed upwards of 340 oxen in one day for the use of his 

 army, and two days afterwards 431 more were killed by the soldiers." All that we can 

 as yet learn of this race (or probably species) is, that it is humpless, and with longer 

 limbs than the cattle of Europe. 



There are " wild cattle " of some sort in Albania ! (Vide Count Karaczsay's " Geo- 

 graphical Account of Albania,'' published in the ' Royal Geographical Society's Journal,' 

 vol. xii. p. 57). Are these bisons, or a primitive taurine stock, or tame cattle gone wild ? 



We have not thought it worth while to note down every locality where European 

 cattle have returned to wildness ; as in the Sandwich Islands, where poor Douglas, 

 the botanical collector, met his fate in a pit-fall with a wild bull, and even in Rodri- 

 guez!— Vide ' Journal Royal Geographical Society,' vol. xix. p. 19. 



