Abstract
I WAS glad to see in NATURE of July 16 (p. 243) that Mr. W. F. Blanford had drawn attention to the extraordinary mistake made by Dr. Kuhn in considering the gayal and gaur specifically identical, and their differences as due to domestication. If this latter were true we should see endless intermediate forms instead of two invariably distinct. To those who know them in their habitat the confusion must seem extraordinary, even though both are here called “Mithun.” The gayal (B. frontalis, v. gavæus) is known (domestic only) all through these hills, and not in the plains; is pied black and white, with pink muzzle, white legs, and the tips of the horns point outwards. The gaur (B. gaurus, v. cavifrons) is only known wild, in the hills and also plains, never pied, has white legs, and the tips of adult horns invariably point inwards. The gayal domestic, and never known wild; the gaur wild, and never known domestic and they do not cross. I have known both here now many years, and had good opportunities of observing and contrasting them. I have had a fine bull gaur feeding along beside me at twenty yards in short grass for over quarter of an hour, as I sat motionless in my Rob Roy canoe, an enormous Dontal (tusker) elephant at the same distance off on the opposite bank; each occasionally left off to sniff me, but resumed again, taking me, in brown-grey costume and grey-coloured canoe, for a snag in midstream (which stream was deep and stagnant). It is not always easy or possible to point out to such a man as Dr. Kuhn that the study of the “dry bones” of an animal is realmy but half the battle in comparing it with its allies. The study of specific distinctions should include the whole animal, alive as well as dead.
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PEAL, S. The Mithun. Nature 33, 7 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/033007b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/033007b0
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