File:Image from page 60 of "Wild oxen, sheep & goats of all lands, living and extinct" (1898) (14725800036).jpg

Identifier: wildoxensheepgoa00lyde Title: Wild oxen, sheep & goats of all lands, living and extinct Year: 1898 (1890s) Authors: Lydekker, Richard, 1849-1915 Subjects: Bison Muskox Mountain sheep Goats Game and game-birds Publisher: London, R. Ward Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book

Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image: supwards, but with no inward bending ; in the skull the nasal bones aredecidedly shorter than those of the gaur. Hair somewhat longer than inthe latter, and the colour distinctly darker, the head and body being darkblackish-brown in both sexes, and the legs from above the knees and hocksto the hoofs pure white or yellowish. Although the domesticated race—apparently the only one of which entire specimens are known—is usually Gayal 33 uniformly coloured, individuals are not unfrequently observed more or lessspotted with white, while a tew are wholly white. Although very massively built, the gayal, at least in the semi-domesti-cated state, stands very considerably lower at the shoulder than the gaur.The horns of a wild hull measured by Mr. Blanford had a length of 14inches, and the same basal girth. In a domesticated specimen measured byMr. Rowland Ward the length along the outer curve of the horn is givenas 15 inches, the basal girth 11|^ inches, and the interval between the tips ,f

Text Appearing After Image: Fig. 4.—Bull Gayal. From a photograph of a specimen in the Calcutta Zoological Gardens. of the two horns 26| inches. In a second example, oi which the horn-length is only 12^7 inches, the basal circumference is 27! inches. Distributioji.—For a long period there was great doubt whether the gayal,or mithan, as it is called in Assam and Chittagong, existed at all in thewild state ; and the opinion has indeed been expressed that the animal isnothing more than a domesticated breed of the gaur. Mr. Blanford,however, records a typical skull in the private collection ot Mr. A. O.Hume, obtained by the late Mr. W. Davison in Tenasserim, andidentified by the latter as belonging to a wild animal killed by himself inTenasserim, between Lemyne, 66 miles south by east ot Moulmein, andTenasserim town. This accordingly appears to fix Tenasserim as lying 34 Oxen within the distributional area of the species, the limits of which have yetto be defined. But it is distinctly remarkable that since the p

Note About Images