Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/30

4 get at. Other conditions being favourable, wherever there are salt-licks, that is, depressions where a whitish clay impregnated with natron is found, these wild cattle, Deer, and even the Felidæ, will abound. It is the Gayal that are in captivity, and not the Gaur. When I first went to Burma I wrote to Mr. Blyth, the curator of the museum in Calcutta, that the Burmese Gaur appeared to me to be larger, and to differ somewhat from the Indian, but he wrote back I must be mistaken, as the Gayal took its place in that country, the true Gaur being absent. However, I was soon able to correct him by sending him heads, and as he shortly after visited the province, he convinced himself that I was right, and wrote that not only were there the true Gaur in the country, but that the skulls and horns were superior to those from Southern India. I pointed out to "Smoothbore," many years ago, that there were two distinct varieties of this Wild Bull, but he was incredulous until he visited Calcutta and spoke to Dr. Anderson, who said, "Pollok is quite right; here are skulls of both." The discrepancies may be due to climatic influences and abundance of food; undoubtedly the Gaur of Burma and of our North-Eastern Frontier are larger than the Indian. I have shot a bull within an ace of 21 hands at the shoulder, and General Blake, an old sportsman, shot a cow 19 hands, whereas the largest bull killed by him in India was of the same size, and the largest he ever saw killed in the Wynand but two inches higher. Even in India Gaur vary; those of the Western Ghâts being larger, and with a profile like a Ram, in that respect resembling their Burmese brethren. Not only does the Burmese Gaur stand higher, but the dorsal ridge extends further back, to within a span of the croup, the dent in the forehead is deeper, the cylindric crest higher, the horns larger, heavier and more truncated, and but seldom worn at the tips as in the Indian. I fancy food is so plentiful they have no need to grub up roots. The heads of the females are, if anything, longer than those of the males, and the nose is more arched.

Those in the Northern Circars of the Madras Presidency, where I shot a great many, have, comparatively speaking, shorter heads, and less of the Ram look; the dorsal ridge terminating about the middle of the back. Then, too, there is the dewlap—has the Gaur one or not? Up to a few years ago the opinion was—not. But