Chav. L] 
THE GrAUR. 
49 
the skeleton of the Manis ; in which it will be seen 
: that the tail is equal in length to all the rest of the 
body, whilst the vertebrae which compose it are stronger 
by far than those of the back. 
From the size and position of the bones of the leg, 
the pengolin is endued with prodigious power; and 
its faculty of exerting this vertically, was displayed 
in overturning heavy cases, by insinuating itself under 
them, between the supports, by which it is customary 
in Ceylon to raise trunks a few inches above the 
floor, in order to prevent the attacks of white ants. 
VI. Kuminantia. The Gaur. — Besides the deer, and 
some varieties of the humped ox, that have been intro- 
duced from the opposite continent of India, Ceylon has 
i' probably but one other indigenous bovine ruminant, the 
I buffalo. 1 There is a tradition that the gaur, found in 
the extremity of the Indian peninsula, was at one period 
a native of the Kandyan Mountains ; but as Knox speaks 
of one which in his time " was kept among the king's 
I creatures " at Kandy 2 , and his account of it tallies with 
that of the Bos Gaurus of Hindustan, it would appear 
i even then to have been a rarity. A place between 
Neuera-eHia and Adam's Peak bears the name of " Gow- 
( ra-ellia," and it is not impossible that the animal may 
yet be discovered in some of the imperfectly explored 
regions of the island. 3 I have heard of an instance in 
which a very old Kandyan, residing in the mountains 
near the Horton Plains, asserted that when young he 
had seen what he believed to have been a gaur, and he 
described it as between an elk and a buffalo in size, 
1 Bubalus buffelus, Gray. Ceylon, $c, a.d. 1681. Book i. c. 6. 
2 Knox, Historical Relation of ' 3 Kjsxaabt, Fauna Zeylan., p. 87. 
