76 W. Theobald— Early Local Silver Coinages in N.-W. Lidia. [No. 2, 
less intricate in character than those used on the earliest coins or 
kdrsapanas. The rupees of the great Kooch-Behar ‘ find ’ of 1863, 
were 1 * * 4 shroff-marked ’ with a variety of ‘ punches,’ and many Bengal 
coins are completely defaced by the process; and I may here 
testify to what has often struck me in the early 4 punch-marked ’ 
coins,—the wonderful capacity the engravers of these 4 punches ’ dis¬ 
played in conveying the idea of the object or animal intended, which 
can be identified, where only a fragment of the impression remains. 1 
In fact the determination of the animal is really a question of 
4 heads and tails ’ ! The tail certainly resembles that of a horse, and if 
as much cannot be said of the head, there is no animal, whose head 
it more closely resembles. Ou the whole, the probability is that a 
horse is intended. 
Whilst on the subject of the identification of animals represented 
on old coins, (a subject claiming for its elucidation the knowledge of 
the sportsman and naturalist rather than the antiquarian and numis¬ 
matist), I would make what I believe to be a correction of an opinion 
expressed in my paper 4 On the Symbols on the Coins of Kuninda,’ 
(ante, Yol. LY, page 163), and repeated in my paper 4 On Punch-marked 
Coins’ (ante, Yol. LIX, page 218), to the effect that the animal repre¬ 
sented on coins of Amoghabhuti, king of the Kunindas, was intended 
for a Yak. A capital figure of the animal in question is given in 4 Corns 
of Ancient India,’ plate Y, fig. 2, and I now consider the animal on these 
coins to be a buffalo and not a Yak. It was my friend Sir Alexander 
Cunningham who first drew my attention to the fact that the 4 Yak ’ was 
an animal unknown in the region occupied by the Kunindas, that is, 
Kullu and Sirhind, and unlikely therefore to be selected to appear on 
their coins. The buffalo, on the other hand, is an animal which has 
pastured on the banks of the Sutlej as early as the Aryan occupation, 
and probably earlier, and as the most important type of pecuniary wealth, 
it might well be selected, apart from mythological symbolism, to occupy 
the prominent position it does on the money of a pastoral and agricultural 
people. The first writer (if I mistake not) to suggest the 4 Yak,’ in con- 
1 On the Bengal coins in my own cabinet the following marks or symbols 
occur, placed always on the obverse of the coin. 1, A watchful goose to r., that is 
with its head and neck upraised. 2, A duck at-roost to 1. 3, A crocodile asleep, to 1. 
4, A peacock (?) 5, A conch shell. 6, A Maltese cross. 7, A 4-petalled flower. 8, A 
7-pointed star. 9, A hollow square. 10, Two dots in an oval. 11, A horseshoe, or 
4 yoni ’ symbol. 12, A wheel (solar). 13, A ball. 14, A cross made of five dots, 
one being central. 15, A conventional tree, perhaps the ‘ TulsI ’ (Ocyraum.) 16, 
A dagger, ‘ Katar.’ 17, An S with open ends, like the letter S. 18, A Bengali B, 
and 19, perhaps an N ; and others too obscure to specify. 
