HUMPED CATTLE OF ASIA AND AFRICA 149 
the peninsular portion of that country these cattle are 
the most common beasts of draught for both fast and 
slow traffic. So far as can be determined, the hump, 
although highly convenient for keeping the yoke in 
position, is quite useless to the animal ; and it is 
probably a feature produced by domestication, just 
as are the masses of tissue at the root of the tail in 
fat-rumped sheep, which are likewise common to 
Asia and Africa. The excessive development of the 
dewlap in the humped cattle of India is perhaps 
also the result of domestication, since the great size 
of this appendage, as well as the presence of the 
hump, would probably be exceedingly inconvenient 
to a wild animal. In this connection it may be noted 
that the presence of a big dewlap in the Indo-Burmese 
cattle known as gayal, and its absence in their wild 
relative the gaur, affords another argument in favour 
of the view that the former is nothing more than a 
domesticated breed of the latter. The convexity of 
the forehead in Indian humped cattle may likewise 
be attributed to domestication, as it is absent in some 
of the humped cattle of Gallaland, in north-eastern 
Africa. 
Although the zebu received its name of Bos indicus 
from Linnaeus in the eighteenth century, naturalists 
were for a long time in doubt as to whether it ought 
to be regarded as specifically distinct from B. taurus. 
One of the first to recognise the undoubted distinct- 
ness of humped cattle was the late Mr. Edward 
Blyth, who pointed out some of their distinctive 
characters in the Indian Field for 1858.^ They differ, 
remarks that naturalist, from ordinary humpless 
^ See Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication^ vol. i. 
p. 83. 
