Chap. I.] 



THE GAUR. 



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 

 probably but one other indigenous bovine ruminant, the 

 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 66 was kept among the king's 

 creatures " at Kandy 2 , and his account of it tallies with 

 that of the Bos Gaurus of Hindustan, it would appear 

 even then to have been a rarity. A place between 

 Neuera-ellia and Adam's Peak bears the name of " Grow- 

 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, fyc, a.d. 1681. Booki. c. 6. 



2 Knox, Historical Belation of 3 Kelaart, Fauna Zey lan., p. 87. 



E 



