2 28 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
horned Assam buffalO; which may therefore be called 
B. {Bubalus) bubalis inacroccrus. It may be added that 
the fossil buffalo of the Narbada Valley, for which in 
1859 Falconer proposed the name B. palcsindicus, 
appears to be inseparable from the straight-horned 
Assam race, having the same type of horns and skull. 
If this view be correct we have evidence of the former 
existence of that race so far south as the Narbada 
Valley, which is a matter of considerable interest 
from a distributional point of view. Hamilton Smith 
stated that in his time this splendid animal was found 
only in the upper eastern provinces and at the foot 
of the Himalaya, but cited evidence to show that 
it previously occurred in the Rhamghur district of 
Bengal. It would thus seem that the race gradually 
died out in the south till it finally survived only in 
some part of Assam, from which, as already men- 
tioned, it may now be exterminated. 
Although the straight-horned type is definitely 
known in a truly wild condition only from the jungles 
of Assam, it is probable that in former days it may 
have been more widely spread ; and it is important 
to notice in this connection that some years ago I 
received a photograph of two pairs of arna horns 
from the Malay Peninsula, one of which comes very 
close to the straight Assam type. Whether these 
specimens belonged to aboriginally wild buffaloes 
or to the descendants of individuals escaped from 
captivity is, however, a matter of uncertainty. 
A somewhat similar degree of uncertainty obtains 
with regard to the buffaloes found wild in parts of 
Borneo, although in my work on Wild Oxen^ Sheep ^ 
and Goats'^ I ventured to regard them as representing 
1 London, 1898, p. 126. 
