548 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
region and Malayan peninsula as far southward as Singapore; but 
its range does not extend to the great eastern islands. 
3. The ngua deng , or “red ox,” must surely he the Tsoing of the 
Burmese, or B. sondaicus ; a fine young bull of which, received from 
Upper Pegu, is now living in the Zoological Society’s G-ardens, 
Begent’s Park. This animal inhabits also the Malayan Peninsula, 
and the Islands of Borneo, Java, Bali, and Lombok; but has not 
been observed in Sumatra. In Bali it would appear to be extensively 
domesticated. 
4. The ngua dam , or “ black ox,” occurring “ on the plains, in 
herds of from 50 to 300 at a time,” I can make nothing of. It cer¬ 
tainly cannot be the Gayal (B. frontalis ), or mWhun , of the hill 
ranges bordering on the valley of Asam to the south ; because the 
Gayal is emphatically a hill species, which soon pines and dies if 
removed to the hot plains, and moreover has the dewlap considerably 
more developed than in either of the two preceding species. The 
Gayal is not known to occur southward of Akyab, but abounds (in 
the domestic state) in the hills along the Kaladyne river (which flows 
from the north into Akyab harbour), and thence northward through 
Chittagong and Tippera, to the Khasya hills and ranges of mountains 
bordering the valley of Asam to the south, and along them eastward 
to the Mishmi hills at the head of that valley. The domestic 
herds are even found together with those of yaks: thus Lieut. 
K. Wilson, in his Memoir of a survey of Asam and the neigh¬ 
bouring countries (As. Bes. xvii. p. 387), notices that “ Mit’huns 
and chori-tailed cows were grazing in great numberswhich im¬ 
plies that the Gayal can withstand a considerably low tempera¬ 
ture for an animal of its particular subgroup, inasmuch as the 
yak is incapable of enduring even moderate heat. Whatever the 
ngua dam , or “black ox,” of Cambodia may be, it most assuredly is 
not the Bos frontalis. Moreover, I know of no wild bovine species 
whatever that could be correctly described as having, in either sex, 
“ short horns, curving forward.” 
5. The domestic humpless species, with short horns and of a 
red colour, is likewise enigmatical. It is perhaps identical with the 
Siamese humpless domestic race noticed by Mr. Crawfurd in his 
* Mission to Siam and Cochin China,’ p. 430, to which the attention 
of Sir B. H. Schomburgk (our respected Consul at Bangkok) has 
been directed; or it may prove to be a domesticated race of the B. 
sondaicus , like that of the island of Bali. But conjecture in such 
matters is of little avail. 
As horns of all these beasts would appear to be articles of com¬ 
merce, specimens of them might perhaps be sometimes obtainable, 
which would suffice to determine certain particular species as inhabi¬ 
tants of the country: but the difficulty of getting hold of speci¬ 
mens of such large animals, and of preparing and preserving even 
their skulls, can be appreciated only by those who have had some 
experience of travelling and collecting objects of natural history in 
so wild a region. Enw. Blath. 
