xes, a very
large and broad moist muffle, massive bodies and stout legs. The
horns, which are laterally wide spread, are supported on cores of
cellular bone, and are cylindrical or depressed at the base. The nose
broad, with the nostrils at the side. The skull has no sub-orbital
pit or fissure, and the bony orbit is prominent; grinders with a
well-developed supplementary lobe; cannon bone short. In India, the
groups into which this sub-family may be divided, are oxen, the
buffaloes, and the yaks. There are no true bison in our limits, the
commonly so-called bison being properly a wild ox. The taurine or
Ox group is divided into the _Zebus_, or humped domestic cattle;
_Taurus_, humpless cattle with cylindrical horns; and _Gavaeus_,
humpless cattle with flattened horns.

According to Dr. Jerdon, in some parts of India small herds of zebus
have run wild. He says:--

"Localities are recorded in Mysore, Oude, Rohilkund, Shahabad, &c.,
and I have lately seen and shot one in the Doab near Mozuffernugger.
These, however, have only been wild for a few years. Near Nellore,
in the Carnatic, on the sea-coast there is a herd of cattle that have
been wild for many years. The country they frequent is much covered
with jungle and intersected with salt-water creeks and back-waters,
and the cattle are as wild and wary as the most feral species. Their
horns were very long and upright, and they were of large size. I shot
one there in 1843, but had great difficulty in stalking it, and had
to follow it across one or two creeks."

_GENUS GAVAEUS_.

Massive head with large concave frontals, surmounted in _G. gaurus_
by a ridge or crest of bone; horns flattened on the outer surface,
corrugated at the base, and smooth for the rest of the two-thirds,
or a little more; wide-spreading and recurved at the tips, forming
a crescent; greenish grey for the basal half, darker towards the tips,
which are black; muffle small; dewlap small or absent; the spinous
processes of the dorsal vertebrae are greatly developed down to about
half the length of the back; legs small under the knee, and white
in colour; hoofs small and pointed, leaving a deer-like print in the
soil, very different to the splay foot of the buffalo.

NO. 464. GAVAEUS GAURUS.
_The Gaur, popularly called Bison_ (_Jerdon's No. 238_).

NATIVE NAMES.--_Gaor_ or _Gaori-gai_, _Bun-boda_, Hindi; _Boda_ and
_Bunparra_ in the Seonee and Mandla districts; _Pera-maoo_ of
Southern Gonds; _