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Show 1890.] MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE INDIAN GAUR. 597 has been distinctly recorded are Northern Pegu and Arrakan west of Pegu ; but Blyth has shown (J. A. S. B. xxix. p. 294) that it probably occurs in the ranges east of Chittagong. It is common in Tenasserim, and is probably found in Siam, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra. It occurs in Java, Bali, and Borneo, and besides the wild animals large herds exist in Java and perhaps in Sumatra in a domesticated state. Bos frontalis.-I have left this to the last, as the question of the range and even of the existence of the wild animal is disputed. The Gayal or Mithan is kept tame by the hill-tribes on both sides of the Assam valley and throughout the Chittagong hills as far south as the neighbourhood of Akyab in Arrakan. According to the earlier accounts, both wild and tame animals are found in the hill-ranges south of Assam ; and an elaborate account was given in the Linnean Transactions, vol. vii. p. 303, by Mr. Macrae (quoted by Mr. Lambert) of the manner in which the Kukis captured the wild herds by the help of the tame Gayals. It is quite possible that "this story may have been devised by the inventive faculty of Mr. Macrae's informant, though the account in itself has more innate probability than most of the legends about animals that we owe to the imagination of the natives of India, whether civilized or not. Some recent writers, and especially Mr. J. Sarbo1, who writes apparently with good opportunities for knowing, declare that there is no such animal as a wild Bos frontalis known, at all events in the country extending from Assam to Arrakan. Blyth, too 2, only notices the wild race as numerous in the Mishmi hills and other hill-ranges bordering on Upper Assam, and states that it is the domestic race that extends southward to near Akyab. It has even been suggested (though certainly not by Mr. Sarbo, who clearly appreciates the distinction between the two) that Bos frontalis is a domestic race of Bos gaurus. This is not impossible, but at the same time it is not, I think, a probable view, because if it were the case, as both animals inhabit the same forests, and as the tame herds of Bos frontalis are said to roam freely during the day, merely returning at night to their owner's village, the two would assuredly interbreed ; and it is incredible that the difference between Bos gaurus and Bos frontalis should be so constant as it is, and so very much more marked than in the case of the wild and tame Buffalo, although the range of the tame animal in the latter case is very far from coinciding with that of the wild race. Hybrids between Bos frontalis and the humped cattle B. indicus are said to be common ; but the skulls of B. frontalis brought from localities as far apart as Upper Assam and the Chittagong hills appear, so far as can be judged from the accounts given, to be similar to each other, and to be all similarly distinguished from those of B. gaurus. Further information on this point is desirable ; but as to the absolute distinction of the two and the absence of intermediate forms we have 1 P. Z. S. 1883, p. 143. 2 Cat. Mamm. Mus. As. Soc. 1863, p. 162. |