Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/31

Rh the question cropped up about two years ago. Mr. Bartlett, the late superintendent of the "Zoo," wrote that the one that lived in the Gardens had a well-developed one. Elliot, Jerdon, Campbell, Sterndale, all said he had none, and I too was of that opinion; but "Smoothbore" writes: "A planter of many years' experience in Tranvancore, and a keen observant sportsman, states that in some examples the Gaur have scarcely any dewlap, and that in others it is strongly developed. So marked is this difference, that the natives divide them into two castes, calling one 'Katu Madoo' or Jungle Cow, and the other 'Kat-erimy' or Jungle Buffalo. He has shot old bulls with at least six inches of skin hanging clear of the chest and throat. This seems extraordinary, when naturalists have mostly described the Gaur as having little or no dewlap. Dewlap originally meant the loose fold descending from the chest, which when the animal was grazing swept the dew: thus, in 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' hounds are described as 'dew-lapped, like Thessalian bulls'; but in the humped Indian cattle the fold extends from the throat downwards, and in the Mysore draught bullocks and in the Brahmini bulls is enormous, whilst in the ordinary village cattle the development is small."

The following notes on the Gaur will be interesting to most readers. Mr. A.F. Martin, of Travancore, writes:—

"When the Kaunan Devan Hills in North Travancore were opened out for tea and cinchona, some years ago, the felling of the forest restricted the wild beasts, particularly the Elephants and Bison, when passing across the estate, to one or two pathways. One particular track was, however, left to them for about ten years, when further cultivation led at last to the blocking up of even this right of way. The animals were at first much puzzled, and both Elephants and Gaur took to wandering about the cultivation. The Elephants accommodated themselves to the altered conditions and used the estate paths. The Gaur, more suspicious, took a straight line for their grazing grounds over the rotten felled timber and through the older cinchona plantations, but were often brought up by the sight of whitewashed walls surmounted by a corrugated iron roof.

"At last they settled down to a pathway between the old cinchona and a natural belt left between it and the new clearing.