American Big Game in Its Haunts by Various
page 45 of 367 (12%)
page 45 of 367 (12%)
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eleventh, bear elongated spines which produce a hump reaching nearly to
the middle of the back; the tail is shorter, and the hair is short all over the body. The three species--gaur, gayal and banteng--inhabit Indo-Malayan countries, and all of them are dark brown with white stockings. The buffaloes (_Bubalus_) are large and clumsy animals with horns more or less compressed or flattened at their bases, set low down on the vertex, which does not show the high transverse ridge of true oxen and gaurs. In old bulls of the African species the horns meet at their base and completely cover the forehead. In the arni of India they are enormously long. The dorsal spines are not much elongated, and there is no distinct hump; the premaxillae are long enough to reach the nasals. Hair is scanty all over the body, and old animals are almost wholly bare. The small and interesting anoa of Celebes, and the tamarao of Mindoro, are nearly related in all important respects to the Indian buffalo, and the carabao, used for draught and burden in the Philippines, belongs to a long domesticated race of the same animal. Finally, in the genus _Bison_ the horns are below the vertex as in buffaloes, but are set far apart at the base, which is cylindrical; they are short and their curve is forward, upward and inward; the anterior dorsal and the last cervical vertebrae have long spines which bear a distinct hump on the shoulders; the premaxillae are short and never reach the nasals; there are fourteen, or occasionally fifteen, pairs of ribs, all other oxen having but thirteen, and there is a heavy mane about the neck and shoulders. The yak of central Asia is very bison-like in some respects, but in others departs in the direction of oxen. So at last, group by group, we have gone through the ungulates, and the |
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