Dr Traill's Account of the Gour of India. 835 
surprising, that the natural history of some of the larger ani- 
mals of those celebrated regions should yet be imperfectly 
known to naturalists in Europe. This obscurity seems to have 
especially involved the animals of the bovine genus. Natu- 
ralists are now generally agreed in considering the Indian cattle 
with the remarkable protuberance on the shoulder, as mere va- 
rieties of our domestic ox ; but an exaggerated account of the 
Wild Buffalo of India, not many years ago, induced Kerr, in 
his unfinished translation of the Sy sterna Naturae , to introduce 
it as a distinct species, under the name of Bos Arnee . In this 
he was followed by Shaw ; but the error was exposed by 
Mr Colebrooke in 1805 ; and Cuvier, with much propriety 5 , has 
considered that animal as merely a variety of buffalo. My in- 
quiries on this subject lead to the same conclusion, My friend 
Captain Rogers, of the Bengal Army, who has paid consider- 
able attention to the quadrupeds of India, states, that the do- 
mestic Buffalo and the Arnee or Urna , are so strikingly alike, 
as often to be distinguished with difficulty, when seen at a little 
distance. The only perceptible differences, when compared, 
consist in the superior size of the urna, the greater compara- 
tive dimensions of its horns, and in its being a shade darker 
than the domestic buffalo. Both animals carry their heads with 
the nose projecting ; the horns of both are transversely wrink- 
led, flattened on the side in the plane of the os frontis, and re- 
cline toward the shoulders, in the usual motions of the animal. 
Their legs indicate great strength, have the metatarsus and me- 
tacarpus short and thick, the articulations large, and more bul- 
ging than in the domestic ox. The urna, like the buffalo, has 
large, lowering, fierce eyes ; a more convex forehead than the 
ox ; a small but distinct dewlap ; and a black skin, thinly co- 
vered with blackish hair. In short, the urna is scarcely to be 
distinguished from the domestic buffalo of India, except, as be- 
fore remarked, by its superior size, and vast horns ; but these 
circumstances no more entitle it to rank as a distinct species, 
than the size of the Lancashire cow divides it from the dimi- 
nutive species of the Highlands of Scotland ; or than the enor- 
mous horns of the Galla oxen, so well figured in Salt's Abys- 
sinian Travels, separate them from the race of our domestic 
cattle. The natives of India are so perfectly satisfied of the 
