MISCELLANEA. 
555 
Mr. Thompson is inclined to accept this estimate, he himself 
having formed an independent opinion that the size of the 
old bull was equal to that of a large London dray-horse. 
The colour is chocolate brown, deepening in shade under- 
neath ; the lower part of the leg is of a dirty yellowish white. 
The shoulder is raised ; not, however, into a lump, like that 
of the Brahmin bull or common Indian ox, but into a kind 
of ridge, giving the idea that the spine, beginning at the 
shoulder, had been naturally raised and carried some 
little distance further back, and then allowed suddenly to 
drop into the ordinary level of the back. The only part of 
the country in which these animals have been met with is in 
the Suhgadre mountains, or western ghauts — a narrow belt 
of wild, broken, and thickly-wooded country, dividing the 
high lands of the Deccan, or Maratha country, from the 1ow t 
land of the Coucan, or country bordering the margin of the 
sea This region, so strangely configurated, is 
of but inconsiderable width, though of great length : it forms 
a narrow line of demarcation between Coucan and Deccan, 
and would scarcely appear to furnish elbow-room sufficient 
to animals so large as the gouwa. He holds to it pertina- 
ciously, nevertheless, on no occasion wandering far on either 
side. According to Mr. Thompson, the gouwa, or East 
Indian bison, although resembling the North American 
buffalo in some respects, differs from him in others. The 
Indian animal has the character of great fierceness, but, from 
the accounts we have of him, he is somewhat stupid. Our 
narrator goes on to say that u the natives, though they hold 
the ferocity of the bison in considerable respect, do not seem 
to consider him an animal of very acute perception. I re- 
remember a e shikarry/ or native huntsman, pointing out to 
me a patch of long thin grass, lying close by a small path 
across a hill-top, and affording nothing that I should have 
considered very good concealment, and telling me that I 
might safely, on emergency, lie down in it and let the bison 
pass along the path.” 
The flesh Mr. Thompson describes as the best beef he 
ever tasted ; nevertheless, the gouwa is not so much perse- 
cuted as one might suppose — all the high caste people hold- 
ing the bison to be a sort of cow. 
ARMY APPOINTMENTS, &c. 
(i Veterinary Surgeon Withers, Royal Artillery, has re- 
turned, in charge of the horses of the late Field Marshal 
Lord Raglan.” 
