I 20 Oxen
Bos (Bubafr/s) buffelus, Blanford, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xxxvi.
p. 195 (1867).
Bubalus kerabau, Brehm, Tierleben—Saugethiere, vol. iii. p. 327 (1891).
Buba/us bubalus, Meyer, Abh. Mus. Dresden for 1896-97, No. 8, p. 14
(1896).
Plate IX
Characters^- Size typically very large, the height at the shoulder
varying from 5 feet to as much as 6 feet 2 inches in adult bulls. Head
relatively long, with the muzzle moderately broad, and the nasal bones of
the skull elongated ; the profile o f the whole head nearly straight, and
the convexity of the forehead moderate. Horns black, very long, distinctly
triangular, tapering regularly from base to tip, with irregular transverse
ridges and grooves for the greater part of their length ; their bases widely
separated, and their curvature not varying much from one plane, although
typically there is a distinct recession behind the plane of the centre of the
forehead ; typically the curvature is upwards, outwards, and slightly backwards,
markedly increasing towards the tips, where the direction I f
inwards and slightly forwards. In some examples of the typical race the
horns are, however, directed almost outwards till near their tips, when
they are curved suddenly upwards. Those of cows longer and more slender
than in bulls. Ears comparatively small and tubular, without heavy fringes
of long hair on their margins. Tail reaching about to the hocks, with a
small terminal tuft. Hair coarse and sparse, nearly disappearing in the
adult; that on the middle line of the back reversed, so as to be directed
forwards from the haunches to the occiput, and forming a whorl in front
of the pelvis ; the colour varying from ashy blackish-gray to dun, the legs
sometimes dirty white, more especially in the domesticated race.
It-is somewhat remarkable that all the existing species o f Asiatic buffaloes
are at once distinguished from their African cousins by the reversal of the
Indian Buffalo 1 2 1
hair on the middle line of the back. They likewise differ by the form of
the skull and horns, and although these display a considerable degree of
variation in the different forms, yet they are essentially o f the same type, and
present a more or ^incomplete passage from one variety to another. The
Asiatic buffaloes seem, therefore, to form a closely allied group of species,
which, owing to their isolated habitats, have become more differentiated
from one another than have the races of the African buffali^S
Distribution*?^-In the wild state, India and apparently other parts of the
Oriental region.
a. T ypical R 4jgi— Bos in: kalis typicm IB
Characters.—Generally those given above, the horns being large and
distinctly receding from the plane of the forehead, and the colour ashy
blackish-gray, with or without whitish on the legs below the .knees, and
hocks ; lower lip whitish. Forehead moderately convex, and facial portion
of skull long.
Although the. older writers, like Brian Hodgson, stated that old bulls
of the Indian buffalo stood as much as 6!A feet at the shoulder, such
dimensions were doubted by Colonel A. Kinloch, who suggested about
5 feet 4mnches.as the maximum height. A bullglhot by H.H. the
Maharaja of Kuch Behar measured, however, 6,.feet 2-J- inches at the
shoulder, with a length of 14 feet 2 incffls from the tip of the muzzle
to the root of the tail, and a maximum girth of 10 feet 8 inches, that at
the shoulder being 2 feet lesM As it is unlikely that this specimen was
the largest that ever lived, 1 Iodgson’s measurements are probably but little,
if at all, in excess Df the truth. A second hull killed by the Maharaja
stood 5 feet 10 inches .at the shoulder. There is no evidence that the specimens
with outwardly directed horns inhabit an area apart from those with
more regularly curved horns, so that the two types cannot be regarded as
R