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Show 1890.] MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE INDIAN GAUR. 593 lumbar vertebrae short, the change in length taking place abruptly, that there is along the anterior half of the back, from the shoulders, a high ridge which terminates suddenly about halfway down the trunk. This character, however, is less marked in Bos sondaicus than in the other two species, and the flattening of the horns is less conspicuous in females than in males and is sometimes not to be detected in cows of the species just named. All the species have a peculiar and characteristic coloration, the old males being dark brown or almost black, the females and younger males paler or reddish brown, the legs from just above the knee and hocks downwards white or whitish. The three known forms may be thus distinguished:- A. No white caudal disk; dorsal ridge high. Females dark umber or sepia-brown. a. Forehead very concave ; a high ridge, the upper border of which is very convex, between the horns. Horns curving much, the points turned inwards. Bos gaurus (the Gaur). b. Forehead nearly flat, no elevated ridge between the horns. Horns curving but little, points not turned inwards. Bos frontalis (the Gayal or Mithan). B. A white caudal disk. Females reddish brown approaching chestnut. Dorsal ridge much lower, termination inconspicuous. Forehead narrower and skull longer than in the other species. Horns smaller and more curved than in either, the points turned in. Bos sondaicus (the Banteng). Coloured figures of the Gayal have already appeared in the Society's ' Proceedings ' ( c?, 1866, pi. i. ; 2 and young, 1882, pi. x. p. 233). Excellent coloured representations of the Banteng are to be found in Sal. Muller and Schlegel's • Verhandelingen Nat. Gesch. Ned. overz. Bez.' The accompanying figure1 (Plate XLIX.) of the young male of Bos gaurus, now in the Gardens, is probably the first taken from a living example, though many figures have been given in illustration of Indian sporting and zoological works 2. Not one of these, however, appears to m e to be a really good representation of the animal, and I am doubtful whether the portrait of the young tame bull now published will convey a correct idea of an adult Gaur in his native haunts. The photograph of a dead Gaur (apparently a bull just mature), which I now exhibit (see woodcut, p. 594), affords a better conception of the animal than any drawing I have ever seen 3. A figure of the bull Gayal (Bos frontalis), which serves to show the proportions, and to some extent the differences of that type, is given in another photograph, kindly lent to m e for the purpose 1 This figure is copied from photographs taken in the Gardens by Major J. Fortune Nott, F.Z.S., who has very kindly allowed them to be used lor the Plate * The most spirited and artistic is that by Wolf in Col. Walter Campbell's ' M y Indian Journal,' but it is incorrect in several points .Figures ot it are dven in Forsyth's ' Highlands of Central India,' Sanderson s Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India,' Sterndale's < Seonee, the same authors Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon, and Hornadays ' T3WI a^mdeVted fo^ttioan of this photograph to D, V Ball, OB and Mr. A. B. Wynne. I regret to say that the original photographer is not known. |