178 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
not milk-consumers. The herds roam at will, un- 
attended, through the forests by day, and return to 
their owners' villages at night. 
According to a manuscript account left by Dr. F. 
Buchanan Hamilton,^ gayal only occasionally breed 
in captivity, and the stock is chiefly replenished by 
the capture and taming of individuals from the local 
herds of wild cattle. " The usual plan employed to 
catch the full-grown gayal is to surround a field of 
corn with a strong fence. One narrow entrance is 
left, in which is placed a rope with a running noose, 
which secures the gayal as he enters the field to eat 
the corn ; of ten so caught perhaps three are strangled 
by the noose running too tight, and by the violence 
of their struggles. Young gayals are caught by 
leaving in the fence holes of a size sufficient to admit 
a calf, but which excludes the full-grown gayal : the 
calves enter by these holes, which are then shut by 
natives who are watching, and who secure the calves. 
The gayal usually goes in herds of from twenty to 
forty head, and frequents dry valleys and the sides of 
hills covered with forest." 
Some difficulty in accepting the above passage as 
it stands arises from statements to the effect that the 
cattle found in a wild state in some of the districts in 
question are truly wild gaur and not escaped gayal. 
Dr. Blanford^ suggesting that at least some of the 
animals captured by the Kukis are gaur. If this 
should prove to be the case, it would go a long way 
in removing any doubts that may remain as to the 
specific identity of the gayal with the gaur. 
Although, as already mentioned, the gayal is, ex- 
^ See Sterndale, The Mammalia of India^ Calcutta, 1884, p. 486. 
2 Op. cit. p. 448. 
