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Show 592 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE INDIAN GAUR. [Nov. 4, 1. On the Gaur (Bos gaurus) and its Allies. By W . T. BLANFORD, F.R.S., F.Z.S., &c. [Received June 18, 1890.] (Plate XLIX.) Very little has been added to our knowledge of the classification, habits, and distribution of the wild Indian Bovidce since Blyth, thirty years ago, wrote an excellent account of the " flat-horned taurine cattle of India " \ But an important addition to the opportunities hitherto afforded to residents in London of studying the living animals of this section of the genus Bos has been made by the arrival at the Society's Gardens of a young male ' Gaur' or • Sladang,' Bos gaurus, in the autumn of 18892. Despite many previous attempts to introduce this animal, no other individual is known to have reached Europe alive. Examples of both the other species belonging to the same section have lived in the Gardens. The young animal3 now in the Gardens at Regent's Park was one of a herd of twenty-four animals captured by the Sultan of Pahang in the Malay Peninsula, as described by Mr. A. H . Wall in the ' Field' (June 1st, 1889, p. 767). A stockade or kraal, similar in form to that used for capturing Elephants, was constructed on a promontory, covered with high grass and bushes, on the Pahang river, and the herd of Gaur were driven into the enclosure by about 1500 beaters. The frightened animals charged and fought each other until one half were killed or mortally wounded, the survivors were driven into a long narrow passage leading to the river, and isolated from each other by bamboo poles. The section of the genus Bos comprising Bos gaurus and its allies was separated by Hodgson4 under the name of Bibos in 1837. It comprises three well-marked forms, and is distinguished by the horns being flattened or subelliptical in section, especially towards the base, by the tail being short, only reaching the hocks, and by the spinous processes of the dorsal vertebrae being long and those of the 1 J. A. S. B. xxix. p. 282 (1860). The substance of this paper was subsequently republished with additions in a series of articles on " Wild types and sources of Domestic Animals," that appeared in ' Land and Water,' vol. iii. 1867, pp. 287, 345, 395, 422, 476, 630. . 2 See P. Z. S. 1889, p. 447. ;! This animal is now (Nov. 1890) in excellent health and condition, and has grown nearly to his full stature. 4 J. A. S. B. vi. p. 747 ; see also J. A. S. B. x. p. 447, and xvi. p. 706. Blyth, in his ' Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum of the Asiatic Society,' 1863, p. 160, adopted the generic term Gavceus, Hamilton Smith. In this he was followed by Jerclon (Mammals of India, p. 301). I cannot find any publication of the name Gavceus as a generic term by Hamilton Smith. In Griffith's ' Ouvier,' iv. p. 406, and v. p. 375, the Gayal is described under the name of Bos gavceus, and placed in the subgenus Bison. Hodgson subsequently, in 1847 (J. A. S. B. xvi. p. 705), separated the Gayal from Bibos, and made it the type of a distinct genus Gavceus, and both genera were admitted in Horsfield's ' Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum of the Hon. East India Company.' |
